4 ms·

> That would be incredibly valuable. They already have most of the tech. They could even create a subscription service around custom search engines if they real

> That would be incredibly valuable. They already have most of the tech. They could even create a subscription service around custom search engines if they really wanted. Plenty of people would find something like that incredibly valuable. Why would they do this? Google's customers are the advertisers, not the end-users. And no one is going to pay for a search engine, it's been tried and has failed.

wakiza33 5y ago
there is a smaller niche market. SEMrush is a tool used in the digital marketing industry that is now public and has a multi-billion dollar market cap. It originally started as a search engine. When they didnt gain traction they used the tech to monitor Google and interface it for customers who are tracking their performance in search results (and much more).
- yawaworht1978 5y ago
  Can I ask what you mean by public? It's not open source as far I know and there's only the free trial way to try it.
  - 555watch 5y ago
    Probably that they completed an IPO (initial _public_ offering)
lumost 5y ago
You only need ~1/10000th of Google's revenue to be a financially successful startup. 1/1000th and you'll have a great business, and at 1/100th you'll be somewhere between a unicorn and a decacorn.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  sure, but you'd need a better search engine if people are going to pay for it. A company with an objectively superior search engine could make even more money with ads so now you’re back to the beginning
  - numbsafari 5y ago
    I don’t know if that follows. Google has been maximizing revenue at the expense of the search result quality. An “objectively superior” search engine, from an end user’s perspective, might have to make engineering choices that come at the expense of ad revenue. But we’re all just talking hypothesis, it’d be cool to see someone launch a startup to get some answers.
- domano 5y ago
  "only"
roughly 5y ago
> And no one is going to pay for a search engine, it's been tried and has failed. Always curious about things like this. I certainly would pay for this; it sounds like many other people here as well would. I'm curious if the constraint is that there aren't enough people to actually pay for the investment required for the service, or if there aren't enough people willing to pay to meet the standard VC notions of success. We seem to have a problem with building and supplying services for niche (read: "not expressable as an integer percent of the world's population") customer bases, and I'm never sure if that's a business problem or a cultural problem.
- SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
  The people most able to pay for a service like this are the people that advertisers most want because they’re the people with enough discretional budget to spend on things like better Google search results. Allowing someone to buy something like this also reduces your attractiveness to your advertising clients.
slt2021 5y ago
if you think about it, Google provides advertisers a customized search engine to find customers. So it is not you searching the web, it is web's advertisers searching leads
numbsafari 5y ago
I think you have to look at it more like Amazon Prime. Nobody is going to pay for /just/ a search engine. But they might pay for, say, a /better/ search engine, plus additional features around gmail/gcal/gdrive. Think of it more as subscribing "to google" and less as subscribing to "google search". Regardless, the point isn't to "fix" google. It's to highlight a possible path for a new market entrant. ... If an existing player wanted to make a move here, I would say that both Mozilla and Apple are well positioned to add "personalized search" to a subscription service. Same with Microsoft. DDG could also make moves here if they expanded beyond search.

wakiza33 5y ago

there is a smaller niche market. SEMrush is a tool used in the digital marketing industry that is now public and has a multi-billion dollar market cap. It originally started as a search engine. When they didnt gain traction they used the tech to monitor Google and interface it for customers who are tracking their performance in search results (and much more).

yawaworht1978 5y ago
Can I ask what you mean by public? It's not open source as far I know and there's only the free trial way to try it.
- 555watch 5y ago
  Probably that they completed an IPO (initial _public_ offering)

lumost 5y ago

You only need ~1/10000th of Google's revenue to be a financially successful startup. 1/1000th and you'll have a great business, and at 1/100th you'll be somewhere between a unicorn and a decacorn.

endisneigh 5y ago
sure, but you'd need a better search engine if people are going to pay for it. A company with an objectively superior search engine could make even more money with ads so now you’re back to the beginning
- numbsafari 5y ago
  I don’t know if that follows. Google has been maximizing revenue at the expense of the search result quality. An “objectively superior” search engine, from an end user’s perspective, might have to make engineering choices that come at the expense of ad revenue. But we’re all just talking hypothesis, it’d be cool to see someone launch a startup to get some answers.
domano 5y ago
"only"

roughly 5y ago

> And no one is going to pay for a search engine, it's been tried and has failed. Always curious about things like this. I certainly would pay for this; it sounds like many other people here as well would. I'm curious if the constraint is that there aren't enough people to actually pay for the investment required for the service, or if there aren't enough people willing to pay to meet the standard VC notions of success. We seem to have a problem with building and supplying services for niche (read: "not expressable as an integer percent of the world's population") customer bases, and I'm never sure if that's a business problem or a cultural problem.

SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
The people most able to pay for a service like this are the people that advertisers most want because they’re the people with enough discretional budget to spend on things like better Google search results. Allowing someone to buy something like this also reduces your attractiveness to your advertising clients.

slt2021 5y ago

if you think about it, Google provides advertisers a customized search engine to find customers. So it is not you searching the web, it is web's advertisers searching leads

numbsafari 5y ago

I think you have to look at it more like Amazon Prime. Nobody is going to pay for /just/ a search engine. But they might pay for, say, a /better/ search engine, plus additional features around gmail/gcal/gdrive. Think of it more as subscribing "to google" and less as subscribing to "google search". Regardless, the point isn't to "fix" google. It's to highlight a possible path for a new market entrant. ... If an existing player wanted to make a move here, I would say that both Mozilla and Apple are well positioned to add "personalized search" to a subscription service. Same with Microsoft. DDG could also make moves here if they expanded beyond search.