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And when effectively no users opt in to advertising, how does the search engine stay in business? It does actually cost money to operate a good search engine.

pryelluw 6y ago
How about they find alternate revenue channels? Like every other business in the world?
- GradientAssent 6y ago
  Sounds like a great opportunity for you to enter the market and capture one of these alternative revenue channels with your ad-free search engine.
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    Yep. People don’t pay for search anymore. They haven’t since Google took over the world a decade and a half ago. That’s not to say free is the best option, but people don’t want to pay when there’s a free solution that works just as well.
  - pryelluw 6y ago
    I think all the great minds at google have a better chance than I do. Plus you were the one saying how unfair it would be for them to not invade people’s privacy in order to cash in. My point is that if they can’t operate without violating our human rights then they shouldn’t operate.
onion2k 6y ago
And when effectively no users opt in to advertising, how does the search engine stay in business? A few years ago my response to this would be that I'd gladly pay Google $10/year for access to Search without adverts, but over the past couple of years that's changed. Google have become so utterly terrible at handling customers that I no longer would. I'll only use Google services if they're free. The idea that Google might just kill my account without notice leaving me with no access to search would be catastrophic. I would gladly pay a different search engine company for access to a good search service though.
- GradientAssent 6y ago
  Google's revenue per user is unfortunately much higher than $10/year.
  - simias 6y ago
    Do you have exact numbers? The estimates I've seen are about $60 per user per annum, so about $5 per month. That's for all services, not just search. So for less than a Netflix subscription you have Youtube, Gmail, Search, Drive, Translate, Calendar, Maps, Photos, Hangouts and more. Services that many people use regularly. It wouldn't be hard to argue that any of these products is worth a lot more than $10 a year, but convincing users at large to go down that route will be a challenge, undoubtedly.
    - ISL 6y ago
      It is less than a Netflix subscription but essentially everyone on the planet subscribes and can't cancel. (Also, many users would agree on the value but balk at redirecting funds from an existing allocation to continue service on something they've already gotten for free.)
    - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
      Google's ARPU for American users was reported at $256 in 2019 [1]. So for ~$25 a month, you might get them to consider switching business models. [1] https://mondaynote.com/the-arpus-of-the-big-four-dwarf-everybody-else-e5b02a579ed3/ https://mondaynote.com/the-arpus-of-the-big-four-dwarf-every...
  - jayparth 6y ago
    It's not that much higher though. Back of napkin tells me that it's like 60$
    - username90 6y ago
      It is much higher for US users.
simias 6y ago
Make me pay for it. The ad industry's biggest accomplishment is making most users believe that they can have access to state of the art search engine, video streaming, messenging etc... for "free". It means that it's incredibly hard to compete with a different business model.
- GradientAssent 6y ago
  Would you pay, say, $120/year? What if it wasn't nearly as good as Google yet?
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    I'd happily pay that for a search engine equivalent to what Google was a decade ago.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - arch-ninja 6y ago
    I'd pay double that right now for any search engine that gave 10 results in <1 second.
  - stiray 6y ago
    Yes I would. Based on the really, really crappy results that google gaves me out lately (I have actually quit using it), $12 a year seems more than reasonable (you have market of millions of users, charging $10 / month is ripoff). Under condition that it is not some ads company under disguise (like google), that they eliminate all SEO crap (i dont want those results anywhere near the 100th page of results) and ads from my results and serve me relevant content. Instead of google I am aggregating multiple search engines and joining the results eliminating all that are not on most of them. I am losing anything special (like there is something "special" today) but at least I dont get bunch of stuff on google that just wastes my time. Nextgrid: yes, exactly that. I want old results, I want old content, I want content that matches with my search words 100% instead of getting what google crappy algorithms think that I want. I dont want hipster crap that propagates next silver bullet (that is just a copy what we already had packed into SaaS).
Fargren 6y ago
The search can still show ads that are relevant to my search terms, right?
jka 6y ago
It's a good question. I'd flip it around a bit and say that if you're a search engine that: - Hosts commercial advertising content (not the entire web; only product and service offerings) - Charges for hosting - Has a highly qualified audience that genuinely wants to receive relevant advertising (based on requests being user-initiated, not software-initiated) - Claims credit for revenue generated as a result of providing relevant advertising ... then you're likely to be able to cover the costs of developing and maintaining the system.
- jka 6y ago
  Two more thoughts: - This is a bit like eBay or Amazon, arguably; except that the user profile and context is optional for the user to provide - Addictive products could still be a loophole that bad advertisers could exploit to monetize users without providing them overall benefit; fortunately local regulations tend to cover that

pryelluw 6y ago

How about they find alternate revenue channels? Like every other business in the world?

GradientAssent 6y ago
Sounds like a great opportunity for you to enter the market and capture one of these alternative revenue channels with your ad-free search engine.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  Yep. People don’t pay for search anymore. They haven’t since Google took over the world a decade and a half ago. That’s not to say free is the best option, but people don’t want to pay when there’s a free solution that works just as well.
- pryelluw 6y ago
  I think all the great minds at google have a better chance than I do. Plus you were the one saying how unfair it would be for them to not invade people’s privacy in order to cash in. My point is that if they can’t operate without violating our human rights then they shouldn’t operate.

onion2k 6y ago

And when effectively no users opt in to advertising, how does the search engine stay in business? A few years ago my response to this would be that I'd gladly pay Google $10/year for access to Search without adverts, but over the past couple of years that's changed. Google have become so utterly terrible at handling customers that I no longer would. I'll only use Google services if they're free. The idea that Google might just kill my account without notice leaving me with no access to search would be catastrophic. I would gladly pay a different search engine company for access to a good search service though.

GradientAssent 6y ago
Google's revenue per user is unfortunately much higher than $10/year.
- simias 6y ago
  Do you have exact numbers? The estimates I've seen are about $60 per user per annum, so about $5 per month. That's for all services, not just search. So for less than a Netflix subscription you have Youtube, Gmail, Search, Drive, Translate, Calendar, Maps, Photos, Hangouts and more. Services that many people use regularly. It wouldn't be hard to argue that any of these products is worth a lot more than $10 a year, but convincing users at large to go down that route will be a challenge, undoubtedly.
  - ISL 6y ago
    It is less than a Netflix subscription but essentially everyone on the planet subscribes and can't cancel. (Also, many users would agree on the value but balk at redirecting funds from an existing allocation to continue service on something they've already gotten for free.)
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    Google's ARPU for American users was reported at $256 in 2019 [1]. So for ~$25 a month, you might get them to consider switching business models. [1] https://mondaynote.com/the-arpus-of-the-big-four-dwarf-everybody-else-e5b02a579ed3/ https://mondaynote.com/the-arpus-of-the-big-four-dwarf-every...
- jayparth 6y ago
  It's not that much higher though. Back of napkin tells me that it's like 60$
  - username90 6y ago
    It is much higher for US users.

simias 6y ago

Make me pay for it. The ad industry's biggest accomplishment is making most users believe that they can have access to state of the art search engine, video streaming, messenging etc... for "free". It means that it's incredibly hard to compete with a different business model.

GradientAssent 6y ago
Would you pay, say, $120/year? What if it wasn't nearly as good as Google yet?
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  I'd happily pay that for a search engine equivalent to what Google was a decade ago.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- arch-ninja 6y ago
  I'd pay double that right now for any search engine that gave 10 results in <1 second.
- stiray 6y ago
  Yes I would. Based on the really, really crappy results that google gaves me out lately (I have actually quit using it), $12 a year seems more than reasonable (you have market of millions of users, charging $10 / month is ripoff). Under condition that it is not some ads company under disguise (like google), that they eliminate all SEO crap (i dont want those results anywhere near the 100th page of results) and ads from my results and serve me relevant content. Instead of google I am aggregating multiple search engines and joining the results eliminating all that are not on most of them. I am losing anything special (like there is something "special" today) but at least I dont get bunch of stuff on google that just wastes my time. Nextgrid: yes, exactly that. I want old results, I want old content, I want content that matches with my search words 100% instead of getting what google crappy algorithms think that I want. I dont want hipster crap that propagates next silver bullet (that is just a copy what we already had packed into SaaS).

Fargren 6y ago

The search can still show ads that are relevant to my search terms, right?

jka 6y ago

It's a good question. I'd flip it around a bit and say that if you're a search engine that: - Hosts commercial advertising content (not the entire web; only product and service offerings) - Charges for hosting - Has a highly qualified audience that genuinely wants to receive relevant advertising (based on requests being user-initiated, not software-initiated) - Claims credit for revenue generated as a result of providing relevant advertising ... then you're likely to be able to cover the costs of developing and maintaining the system.

jka 6y ago
Two more thoughts: - This is a bit like eBay or Amazon, arguably; except that the user profile and context is optional for the user to provide - Addictive products could still be a loophole that bad advertisers could exploit to monetize users without providing them overall benefit; fortunately local regulations tend to cover that