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>The results page always has links if I care to dig deeper but 99% of the time I'd rather get the answer and move on. So, by your own numbers, websites that cr

by nend 6y ago

>The results page always has links if I care to dig deeper but 99% of the time I'd rather get the answer and move on. So, by your own numbers, websites that create the content have just lost 99% of your page views to Google. >What kinds of searches are you thinking about? Sounds like pretty much all your searches can be used as examples then.

criddell 6y ago
> websites that create the content have just lost 99% of your page views to Google No because less than 100% of my searches are for questions with simple answers. Part of the reason getting an answer quickly from Google is so appealing is because the sources that Google uses seem to be hostile to their audience. I use Google Fi and pay $10 / GB for my data which means your ad heavy page may cost me more in bandwidth fees than you get from ads. Do you think newsreaders are as evil as Google? I use NetNewsWire on my tablet and very few of the feeds I subscribe to show any ads and I rarely click through to the source.
- nend 6y ago
  >Do you think newsreaders are as evil as Google? I use NetNewsWire on my tablet and very few of the feeds I subscribe to show any ads and I rarely click through to the source. I haven't used an RSS reader in a while, so I may be wrong on this but: 1) Last I remembered content creators could still place ads that are displayed through the reader, so it's not a complete loss if you don't click through. 2) NetNewsWire is not operating at nearly the same scale as Google, and isn't coming close to the anti-competitive, monopolistic effects that Google has. There are clearly some benefits to users in the short term, but in the long term it just entrenches Google further and hurts competition, which is bad for users in the long term.
  - criddell 6y ago
    In the long term, basic facts will be table stakes for anything that wants to answer questions. Think about Amazon's Echo, Apple's Siri, or the Google Assistant. You can ask any of them about weather or Dr. Fauci's age and get basic factual answers. I would expect digital assistants to be able to handle queries of much greater complexity in the future and I would expect google.com to keep up with that. If they make the user experience great, users will keep using Google and if that's where the users are, then that's where publishers will want to be as well. The barrier to switching search engines is ridiculously low. If Google starts to make decisions that are bad for users (and I would consider forcing users to click through to a weather site a bad idea) then they will switch to a better search engine.
    - nend 6y ago
      There's almost no search engine competition, so whether it's easy to switch is irrelevant because for the average user, there's no option to switch to. Echo/Siri/Google assistant actually make it harder for people to switch, because the average user is not going to install google assistant on an echo device, which means they have to spend money and learn a new device in order to use a new assistant. So if in your future you're treating assistants as search engines, lock-in becomes worse. >If Google starts to make decisions that are bad for users Google has already made plenty of decisions that are bad for users, and they still have 90% market share because there's no meaningful competition. You're basically envisioning a dystopian future where facts are controlled by a small set of mega corporations.

by nend 6y ago

criddell 6y ago

> websites that create the content have just lost 99% of your page views to Google No because less than 100% of my searches are for questions with simple answers. Part of the reason getting an answer quickly from Google is so appealing is because the sources that Google uses seem to be hostile to their audience. I use Google Fi and pay $10 / GB for my data which means your ad heavy page may cost me more in bandwidth fees than you get from ads. Do you think newsreaders are as evil as Google? I use NetNewsWire on my tablet and very few of the feeds I subscribe to show any ads and I rarely click through to the source.

nend 6y ago
>Do you think newsreaders are as evil as Google? I use NetNewsWire on my tablet and very few of the feeds I subscribe to show any ads and I rarely click through to the source. I haven't used an RSS reader in a while, so I may be wrong on this but: 1) Last I remembered content creators could still place ads that are displayed through the reader, so it's not a complete loss if you don't click through. 2) NetNewsWire is not operating at nearly the same scale as Google, and isn't coming close to the anti-competitive, monopolistic effects that Google has. There are clearly some benefits to users in the short term, but in the long term it just entrenches Google further and hurts competition, which is bad for users in the long term.
- criddell 6y ago
  In the long term, basic facts will be table stakes for anything that wants to answer questions. Think about Amazon's Echo, Apple's Siri, or the Google Assistant. You can ask any of them about weather or Dr. Fauci's age and get basic factual answers. I would expect digital assistants to be able to handle queries of much greater complexity in the future and I would expect google.com to keep up with that. If they make the user experience great, users will keep using Google and if that's where the users are, then that's where publishers will want to be as well. The barrier to switching search engines is ridiculously low. If Google starts to make decisions that are bad for users (and I would consider forcing users to click through to a weather site a bad idea) then they will switch to a better search engine.
  - nend 6y ago
    There's almost no search engine competition, so whether it's easy to switch is irrelevant because for the average user, there's no option to switch to. Echo/Siri/Google assistant actually make it harder for people to switch, because the average user is not going to install google assistant on an echo device, which means they have to spend money and learn a new device in order to use a new assistant. So if in your future you're treating assistants as search engines, lock-in becomes worse. >If Google starts to make decisions that are bad for users Google has already made plenty of decisions that are bad for users, and they still have 90% market share because there's no meaningful competition. You're basically envisioning a dystopian future where facts are controlled by a small set of mega corporations.