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It's a bit ironic that this post is part of the problem. It's very hard to make money in decent product reviews but there is money in SEO optimization & referra

It's a bit ironic that this post is part of the problem. It's very hard to make money in decent product reviews but there is money in SEO optimization & referral links. Most product feedback and honest opinions are shared on sites like Twitter & Reddit which range from bad-SEO (Reddit, Youtube) to deliberately anti-SEO (Twitter, Instagram, Pintrest). While this thread/opinion is on HN ATM, it will quickly be gone and no one using a search engine will find it (if they do it will probably be via finding a HN or Reddit post first). That said I'm not sure what search results this person is actually getting but I really haven't had a problem using DDG or Google. I just know that what's marketed and used by the average consumer tends to be pretty bad if you ask any expert or enthusiast. I don't think this is search engines being bad at their job it's just that most topics bifurcate quickly into average people and amateur experts/enthusiasts. Here's an example. Coffee. It's a very common beverage that millions if not billions of people drink every day. However, coffee culture for the average person is very different from enthusiast coffee culture. Search engine's are not even that bad... if you look up a good coffee grinder. The top sites on both DDG/Bing and Google do mention the difference between a blade and burr grinder. The most recommended option looks pretty decent. This is probably a much better option for 90% of people than getting the 'enthusiast' (no-brand industrial burr grinder) option off of Ebay. Anyone who complains about search engine result quality is a completely different demographic from the typical person. I don't think Google's search as gotten worse but rather typical user (i.e. training data) becoming more average. Another good example are TVs. Everyone and everyone's dad knows that Costco has some pretty good deals on TVs as well as offering a best in class warranty. However, if you read the forums and in-depth reviews you will quickly notice that Costco doesn't have 90% of the best TV in each price range. The average consumer wants the best Costco TV not the best TV as long as you get X% discount and you calibrate yourself, etc.

betwixthewires 5y ago
> Anyone who complains about search engine result quality is a completely different demographic from the typical person. I don't think Google's search as gotten worse but rather typical user (i.e. training data) becoming more average. I hear this argument a lot, and I think it is a cop out. Google literally bills itself as being able to personalize itself to your interests and being able to learn based on your queries. On top of that, google used to work 7 years ago essentially perfectly. If there were really such a divergence between myself and "typical users" you'd have heard them all complain about google then, because they were using it also. What's going on here is a misalignment of incentives between users and Google. They don't have an interest in being useful, they have an interest in herding eyes to the most profitable places and in using people to train their AI. They believe nobody can oust them as incumbent and so they no longer feel they have to deliver a good product if doing that hurts the bottom line.

betwixthewires 5y ago

> Anyone who complains about search engine result quality is a completely different demographic from the typical person. I don't think Google's search as gotten worse but rather typical user (i.e. training data) becoming more average. I hear this argument a lot, and I think it is a cop out. Google literally bills itself as being able to personalize itself to your interests and being able to learn based on your queries. On top of that, google used to work 7 years ago essentially perfectly. If there were really such a divergence between myself and "typical users" you'd have heard them all complain about google then, because they were using it also. What's going on here is a misalignment of incentives between users and Google. They don't have an interest in being useful, they have an interest in herding eyes to the most profitable places and in using people to train their AI. They believe nobody can oust them as incumbent and so they no longer feel they have to deliver a good product if doing that hurts the bottom line.