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The central problem with this and similar endeavors: nobody is willing to pay what they are worth in ads. Let's say the average Google user in the US earns them
by KarlKemp 5y ago
The central problem with this and similar endeavors: nobody is willing to pay what they are worth in ads. Let's say the average Google user in the US earns them $30/year. Are you willing to pay $30/year for an ad-free Google experience? Great! We now know that you are worth at least $60/year.
That little thought experiment is true for many online services, from social networking to (marginally) publishing. But nowhere is it more true than for search results, which differ in two fundamental ways: being text-only, they don't bother me to anywhere near the degree of other ads. And, second, they are an order of magnitude more valuable than drive-by display ads, because people have indicated a need and a willingness to visit a website that isn't among their bookmarks. These two, combined, make this the worst possible case for replacing an ad-based business with a donation model.
The idea mentioned in this readme that "Google intentionally degrades search results to make you also view the second page" is also wrong, bordering on self-delusion. The typical answer to conspiracy theories works here: there are tens of thousands of people at Google. Such self-sabotage would be obvious to many people on the inside, far too many to keep something like this secret.
- daoudc 5y agoTBF I don't think Google intentionally degrades results, but they have less incentive to improve the results.
- dazc 5y agoThe same way people don't intentionally break the law, they just overlook certain aspects of it when it suits them.
- dazc 5y agoDuck Duck Go is profitable despite not blanketing the first page with ads (just like google were once upon a time); you can have no ads at all if you like also. Do they make money in other ways, sure but not in a way that degrades the user experience. Are DDG results inferior, for 95% of users no.
- nyuszika7h 5y ago> Are DDG results inferior, for 95% of users no. Do you have a source for this figure? Maybe it's mostly true for the "average non-tech-savvy user in an English-speaking country", but I've found DuckDuckGo and everything other than Google inferior in many cases, especially when looking for Hungarian content.
- dazc 5y agoSorry, for the "average non-tech-savvy user in an English-speaking country" is more or less what I meant. Although this would have been true for Google also in the early days.
- nyuszika7h 5y agoI would consider Google randomly excluding the most relevant words from my search query intentionally degrading results. It's incredibly frustrating. This shouldn't be the default behavior, maybe an optional link the user can click to try again with some of the terms excluded. Yes, I know verbatim mode exists, but I always forget to enable it, and the setting eventually gets lost when my cookies are cleared or something. Unfortunately I can't switch to another search engine because in my experience every other search engine has far inferior results, despite not having the annoying behaviors Google does. DuckDuckGo is only useful for !bangs for me.
- timeon 5y ago> The central problem with this and similar endeavors: nobody is willing to pay what they are worth in ads. Let's say the average Google user in the US earns them $30/year. Are you willing to pay $30/year for an ad-free Google experience? Great! We now know that you are worth at least $60/year. Is this relevant for non-profit project? Do you pay $30/year for Wikipedia?
- KarlKemp 5y agoDo you think „non profit“ means they don’t have to pay for servers and employees? And yes.