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> Google with all of their cash in the bank and talented engineers can't even crack the problem. "Can't they" or "won't they" because it's simply not in their

> Google with all of their cash in the bank and talented engineers can't even crack the problem. "Can't they" or "won't they" because it's simply not in their business interest?

DannyBee 5y ago
Ah yes, the amazing hn cynicism - it's not that the problem is really hard, and there is a really complex system here with all sorts of incentives, variables, and issues on all sides. Instead, everything is easy, and the reason the "right" thing (as defined by the poster) doesn't happen can be reduced to some single cartoon-villain level bullet point like "not in business interest". Small problem: There are plenty of folks, foundations, companies who are not resource limited in attacking something like this, yet it still doesn't happen. So maybe it's not as simple as you think?
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  I don't think this is particularly cynical. Ads are how Google makes money. Show results with many ads, make money. Show results with no ads, make no money. I don't think it's an example of mustache twisting villainy, but rather their business model. I can't really blame them, either.
- dylan604 5y ago
  Please, the cynicism pointed in the Googs direction is well deserved. It is clear and obvious by their behaviour and changes to company ethos that serving ads is priority #1. Any thing that diminishes that ability will not be tolerated. Just look at the recent (as of yesterday) stories of the changes that Googs is pushing to re-enable tracking that has been previously manually/intentionally disabled by the users. Look at how Maps is forcing users to enable wifi in order to provide routing directions. This one happened to me personally as well.
  - DannyBee 5y ago
    So you don't at all address whether the problem is hard, and instead deflect completely. The wifi thing is just a silly example. The wifi is required to do fast start GPS. 99.99999999% of their users probably don't want slow start GPS. If you do, sure, it's no longer the app for you. Yes, they are optimizing for the customers they want and giving them a good experience . I'm not sure exactly how this is something abnormal. Like, you are basically complaining they won't add knobs for you. That's pretty standard in good products - but also means if the knobs they aren't what you want, it's not a good fit for you. I got the email in the latter, and that is a super weird take. They had one control for literally everything, which was owned by admins. They almost certainly got complaints that turning it off it made search suggestions not work in sheets/docs/etc. So they introduced a new separate control for that, and made it controllable by the user. Because it's controllable by the user, it also means the admin can't see the doc search history of the user, only the user can. Nor can they delete your history for you - only you can control it. Your auto-delete preferences, etc apply to it. None of this seems bad or horrible to me. The only thing even worth picking a bone about is whether the new setting should take it's default from the old setting or not. There are issues in there of course, because as mentioned, before admins could turn it on/off for everyone - and this led to lots of complaints. do you take the admin setting? Do you take the setting the user had if it hadn't been overridden by the admin? etc The claim, in that story, i that it is forced on by default even if you had it off. This claim is wrong, afaict. It was not worth wading into that clear firestorm of a thread. The support doc clearly says: "If you disabled Web & App Activity in the Admin console, it is turned off for Google Workspace users. Users can turn it on if they want." IE if the admin had it disabled, it will be turned off. It also says if you had it disabled yourself, it will default to off. It goes through this quite clearly if you click "what if i had it disabled" and "what happens if i don't do anything". Overall presenting this as "re-enable tracking that was manually/intentionally disabled by users" is a real stretch.
    - pdonis 5y ago
      > The wifi is required to do fast start GPS No, it isn't. A cell phone connection is sufficient for that.
      - 5y ago
- prox 5y ago
  Same reason electrical cars took ages to take off before Tesla. The status quo companies (and most are, because nobody likes a disruptor) dragged their heels to no end before that.
  - DannyBee 5y ago
    This is a similarly over-simplified take. Things are simply never this binary.
    - tharne 5y ago
      > This is a similarly over-simplified take. Is it though? There are plenty of examples of businesses or even entire industries trying their level best to slow down changes and innovations that will hurt their profits. And in many cases the products may become worse, but more profitable, over time. In the 1970's, you could buy a washing machine in the United States that would last you 25 years. Try doing that now. I'm sure a lot of folks would like their washing machine to last two and half decades, but that's not that profitable if you're in the business of selling washing machines.
- eitland 5y ago
  Good points. But a large part of the problem is that Google can't be bothered to follow their own rules: Again and again I catch them ignoring my doublequotes and verbatim options. There aren't any conflicting incentives around that, are there? Either you respect user queries or you don't. Also, look at it another way: Kagi manages to do this while building on Google! It is in another league, just like Google used to be. Even nano scale Marginalia (1 guy, 1 tower pc, 4 drives) manages to respect my queries.
- Jasper_ 5y ago
  Both things can be true. Perhaps the problem is really hard, and Google also isn't attempting to solve it anymore.
  - skeeter2020 5y ago
    ...or they are different problems? Google is really good at solving their problems, maybe they only care about quality search results as related to financial incentives?
    - dylan604 5y ago
      Moving the goal posts and declaring a victory aided by buying up/supressing other competitors. Become winner by default judgement.
- rthomas6 5y ago
  I would agree except Google used to do a good job.
- skeeter2020 5y ago
  How does that reconcile with google results getting worse over time then, with worse defined as relevancy vs. profit motives? With UI changes that de-emphasize the results and promote the ads? With pulling in cursory summarizes to keep you on a google property and isntead of qucily & easily getting you to the definitive source? There is lots of support for assuming the worst of google in this case.
  - notriddle 5y ago
    Because it's not just Google. Every web search engine has been getting worse; it's why Google remains "the best" in every head-to-head comparison. The whole web has been getting harder to search.
    - marginalia_nu 5y ago
      With a few small exceptions, every search engine uses either Google or Bing-data.
    - eitland 5y ago
      I thought this too. Then I found Kagi last year who manages to exeed my expectations, proving that my original assumption is correct: It is still possible to provide good results today, Google just fails at it. I'm not saying it is easy. But it is possible. (Extra interesting: Kagi builds on Google and Bing, two engines that drive me crazy, yet Kagi manages to be great!)
- zepto 5y ago
  But that's just it - Google's business interest is always about protecting revenue from search advertising, which is never simply aligned with the search user or with search quality, but exactly as you describe it "a really complex system here with all sorts of incentives, variables, and issues on all sides". It’s perfectly reasonable to speculate about whether search quality is sacrificed in the interest of some incentive Google is trying to balance in favor of its own revenue stream. The fact that it’s complex is immaterial.

> Google with all of their cash in the bank and talented engineers can't even crack the problem. "Can't they" or "won't they" because it's simply not in their business interest?

DannyBee 5y ago

Ah yes, the amazing hn cynicism - it's not that the problem is really hard, and there is a really complex system here with all sorts of incentives, variables, and issues on all sides. Instead, everything is easy, and the reason the "right" thing (as defined by the poster) doesn't happen can be reduced to some single cartoon-villain level bullet point like "not in business interest". Small problem: There are plenty of folks, foundations, companies who are not resource limited in attacking something like this, yet it still doesn't happen. So maybe it's not as simple as you think?

marginalia_nu 5y ago
I don't think this is particularly cynical. Ads are how Google makes money. Show results with many ads, make money. Show results with no ads, make no money. I don't think it's an example of mustache twisting villainy, but rather their business model. I can't really blame them, either.
dylan604 5y ago
Please, the cynicism pointed in the Googs direction is well deserved. It is clear and obvious by their behaviour and changes to company ethos that serving ads is priority #1. Any thing that diminishes that ability will not be tolerated. Just look at the recent (as of yesterday) stories of the changes that Googs is pushing to re-enable tracking that has been previously manually/intentionally disabled by the users. Look at how Maps is forcing users to enable wifi in order to provide routing directions. This one happened to me personally as well.
- DannyBee 5y ago
  So you don't at all address whether the problem is hard, and instead deflect completely. The wifi thing is just a silly example. The wifi is required to do fast start GPS. 99.99999999% of their users probably don't want slow start GPS. If you do, sure, it's no longer the app for you. Yes, they are optimizing for the customers they want and giving them a good experience . I'm not sure exactly how this is something abnormal. Like, you are basically complaining they won't add knobs for you. That's pretty standard in good products - but also means if the knobs they aren't what you want, it's not a good fit for you. I got the email in the latter, and that is a super weird take. They had one control for literally everything, which was owned by admins. They almost certainly got complaints that turning it off it made search suggestions not work in sheets/docs/etc. So they introduced a new separate control for that, and made it controllable by the user. Because it's controllable by the user, it also means the admin can't see the doc search history of the user, only the user can. Nor can they delete your history for you - only you can control it. Your auto-delete preferences, etc apply to it. None of this seems bad or horrible to me. The only thing even worth picking a bone about is whether the new setting should take it's default from the old setting or not. There are issues in there of course, because as mentioned, before admins could turn it on/off for everyone - and this led to lots of complaints. do you take the admin setting? Do you take the setting the user had if it hadn't been overridden by the admin? etc The claim, in that story, i that it is forced on by default even if you had it off. This claim is wrong, afaict. It was not worth wading into that clear firestorm of a thread. The support doc clearly says: "If you disabled Web & App Activity in the Admin console, it is turned off for Google Workspace users. Users can turn it on if they want." IE if the admin had it disabled, it will be turned off. It also says if you had it disabled yourself, it will default to off. It goes through this quite clearly if you click "what if i had it disabled" and "what happens if i don't do anything". Overall presenting this as "re-enable tracking that was manually/intentionally disabled by users" is a real stretch.
  - pdonis 5y ago
    > The wifi is required to do fast start GPS No, it isn't. A cell phone connection is sufficient for that.
    - 5y ago
prox 5y ago
Same reason electrical cars took ages to take off before Tesla. The status quo companies (and most are, because nobody likes a disruptor) dragged their heels to no end before that.
- DannyBee 5y ago
  This is a similarly over-simplified take. Things are simply never this binary.
  - tharne 5y ago
    > This is a similarly over-simplified take. Is it though? There are plenty of examples of businesses or even entire industries trying their level best to slow down changes and innovations that will hurt their profits. And in many cases the products may become worse, but more profitable, over time. In the 1970's, you could buy a washing machine in the United States that would last you 25 years. Try doing that now. I'm sure a lot of folks would like their washing machine to last two and half decades, but that's not that profitable if you're in the business of selling washing machines.
eitland 5y ago
Good points. But a large part of the problem is that Google can't be bothered to follow their own rules: Again and again I catch them ignoring my doublequotes and verbatim options. There aren't any conflicting incentives around that, are there? Either you respect user queries or you don't. Also, look at it another way: Kagi manages to do this while building on Google! It is in another league, just like Google used to be. Even nano scale Marginalia (1 guy, 1 tower pc, 4 drives) manages to respect my queries.
Jasper_ 5y ago
Both things can be true. Perhaps the problem is really hard, and Google also isn't attempting to solve it anymore.
- skeeter2020 5y ago
  ...or they are different problems? Google is really good at solving their problems, maybe they only care about quality search results as related to financial incentives?
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Moving the goal posts and declaring a victory aided by buying up/supressing other competitors. Become winner by default judgement.
rthomas6 5y ago
I would agree except Google used to do a good job.
skeeter2020 5y ago
How does that reconcile with google results getting worse over time then, with worse defined as relevancy vs. profit motives? With UI changes that de-emphasize the results and promote the ads? With pulling in cursory summarizes to keep you on a google property and isntead of qucily & easily getting you to the definitive source? There is lots of support for assuming the worst of google in this case.
- notriddle 5y ago
  Because it's not just Google. Every web search engine has been getting worse; it's why Google remains "the best" in every head-to-head comparison. The whole web has been getting harder to search.
  - marginalia_nu 5y ago
    With a few small exceptions, every search engine uses either Google or Bing-data.
  - eitland 5y ago
    I thought this too. Then I found Kagi last year who manages to exeed my expectations, proving that my original assumption is correct: It is still possible to provide good results today, Google just fails at it. I'm not saying it is easy. But it is possible. (Extra interesting: Kagi builds on Google and Bing, two engines that drive me crazy, yet Kagi manages to be great!)
zepto 5y ago
But that's just it - Google's business interest is always about protecting revenue from search advertising, which is never simply aligned with the search user or with search quality, but exactly as you describe it "a really complex system here with all sorts of incentives, variables, and issues on all sides". It’s perfectly reasonable to speculate about whether search quality is sacrificed in the interest of some incentive Google is trying to balance in favor of its own revenue stream. The fact that it’s complex is immaterial.