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Not the biggest fan of Brave myself, but they seem to actually get extra points in my eyes for adding the paid option. It's not like you can pay $3 to Google to

Not the biggest fan of Brave myself, but they seem to actually get extra points in my eyes for adding the paid option. It's not like you can pay $3 to Google to get them to stop surveilling you. On a bigger note, monetizing search without ads seem to be a pretty tricky business model. Especially if you want to move beyond being a niche product; even an average HN reader would be hard to convince to pay for a regular subscription, so with the general public I can't imaging the hassle. What are other ways search engines could monetize without taking money either from users or from people that want to show something to them?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
puchatek 4y ago
I would pay Google 30 just for search+maps of it came without tracking and ads
- the_third_wave 4y ago
  They'd happily take your money and track and ad-bomb you anyway, the ads will be ingeniously disguised as "valuable information" but they'd be there.
- INeedMoreRam 4y ago
  My solution is using uBlock Origin without signing in to Google and a VPN. I'm not concerned about ads because I literally never see them. And uBlock blocks the tracking. Do you not use uBlock Origin? https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpa...
  - t0bia_s 4y ago
    Your browser has unique fingerprint regardless of VPN or uBlock. If you want be anonymous, use Tor.
- DavideNL 4y ago
  Perhaps check https://kagi.com/pricing https://kagi.com/pricing A good search engine, also uses Google results I think.
kevinventullo 4y ago
If search engines were considered important enough to be a public utility, one could be funded by taxpayer dollars. Now of course, search results can be heavily politicized, but I suppose the same is true of which books a library decides to carry.
- t0bia_s 4y ago
  No. We need decentralised federated solution.
- dymk 4y ago
  Search engines are important, but they’re funded quite well with ads, so why would anybody go through the effort to make it a public utility?
  - kevinventullo 4y ago
    I suppose if the government felt that ads-supported search engines had such misaligned incentives that it would be net beneficial for society to create one without such incentives, then that might serve as a justification. I don’t actually think this is plausible, just making an analogy with say private fire departments.
  - autoexec 4y ago
    So that search engines work. Google search has been crippled by ads. Sometimes people just want nice stuff and a search engine that wasn't designed to mislead (https://www.theverge.com/2015/11/20/9768350/google-ads-search-results-ofcom https://www.theverge.com/2015/11/20/9768350/google-ads-searc...) and where the amount of money paid doesn't dictate what is easy to find would be a great asset to everybody. No company has risen to give us a powerful search engine that isn't also a cesspool of marketing bullshit so it would be reasonable for people to seek an option that serves the interests of the public.
- yonaguska 4y ago
  Yeah, I just don't trust the govt to not politicize search, or at the very least, to not use search results to manufacture consent or other nefarious intentions. NPR comes to mind. With private companies, at least there's some visage of a separation from state influence although we are seeing the lash back now with Twitter.
thewebcount 4y ago
It's a slippery slope though. We saw this with Google, so it's not like it's a straw man. First it's small, discrete ads to the side. Then it's the first few entries are ads, but are marked as such. Then it's the first page of entries. Then the marking disappears. (Yeah, they put it back eventually after a backlash. I wouldn't expect a company like Brave to do the same, though.) I just go with a search engine I pay for that doesn't offer any ad-supported stuff (kagi.com). That way, I'm directly supporting the service, and they have zero incentive to start showing me stuff that other people are paying for me to see and which I definitely don't want to see.
- t0bia_s 4y ago
  But there is no privacy with payed service. Your search history is linked with your credit card = name.
- mgreg 4y ago
  It's a very good point that companies will (eventually) look to maximize revenue and thus even companies that start out with grand ideas of being "different" succumb to that pressure. A strong countervailing force (in some markets) is competition. If Google had more competition (both in terms of a independent search service and access to be the default search option in browsers) they might have to start caring more about the search experience and privacy.
- hannofcart 4y ago
  > I wouldn't expect a company like Brave to do the same, though. Companies change. When the leadership/guard at a company changes, or with enough investor pressure, policies can easily change from benevolent to a money grab.
greyface- 4y ago
Make it a 501(c)(3) non-profit, like the Internet Archive or Wikipedia.
- fsflover 4y ago
  Or at least a Social Purpose Corporation like Purism.
SoftTalker 4y ago
> It's not like you can pay $3 to Google to get them to stop surveilling you. Well sort of. You can pay them for YouTube Premium and watch videos without ads. I might pay for an ad-free Google Search but I have developed an almost reflexive habit of ignoring the ads on Google Search anyway. It's much easier to just look past them in the search results, as opposed to when watching a video where you have no choice. And I'm sure they are surveilling me regardless.
r00fus 4y ago
> It's not like you can pay $3 to Google to get them to stop surveilling you. You can, at least for Youtube - the premium offering is ad-free. In fact, that's the only reason I subscribe - not the content - because my entire family uses my account or is part of my Google "family" to bypass YT ads. Worth the (ever increasing) monthly fee. My guess is that this only exists to foil Netflix, and if Netflix didn't have an ad-free service, Google would make this option cost a lot more or remove it entirely.
- arepublicadoceu 4y ago
  > You can, at least for Youtube - the premium offering is ad-free. ad-free =/= surveillance free.
  - encryptluks2 4y ago
    Please offer some proof that Google does more surveillance than Brave.
    - NayamAmarshe 4y ago
      https://privacyspy.org https://privacyspy.org
    - taejavu 4y ago
      I mean, just the fact that they track your location would put their surveillance way ahead of Brave, no?
    - jlarocco 4y ago
      Assuming that's a good faith question (I'm skeptical), let's click through some random HN headlines and use uMatrix to count how many requests for Javascript and other garbage are being made to Google servers, and how many are made to Brave's servers. First off: https://www.deepmind.com/blog/mastering-stratego-the-classic-game-of-imperfect-information https://www.deepmind.com/blog/mastering-stratego-the-classic... By my count that has two requests to googleapis.com, one to gstatic.com, and one to googletagmanager, but none to any Brave sites. Next up: https://www.thefire.org/news/free-speech-culture-elon-musk-and-twitter https://www.thefire.org/news/free-speech-culture-elon-musk-a... Requests googletagmanager, but nothing from Brave. Next: https://www.countbayesie.com/blog/2022/11/30/understanding-convolutions-in-probability-a-mad-science-perspective https://www.countbayesie.com/blog/2022/11/30/understanding-c... Makes requests to googletagmanager ang googleapis.com. Brave completely missing. And: https://twitter.com/coinbasewallet/status/1598354819735031809 https://twitter.com/coinbasewallet/status/159835481973503180... Sends requests to google-analytics.com, but Brave is a no show again And finally: https://jakespracher.medium.com/machines-and-chaos-9f0e87eebe86 https://jakespracher.medium.com/machines-and-chaos-9f0e87eeb... Which uses google-analytics, but nothing from Brave. Practically every commercial website on the internet has Google spyware tied in somehow. And just to spell it out, every time your browser sends a request to one of the Google servers, they're keeping track and surveiling you.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

puchatek 4y ago

I would pay Google 30 just for search+maps of it came without tracking and ads

the_third_wave 4y ago
They'd happily take your money and track and ad-bomb you anyway, the ads will be ingeniously disguised as "valuable information" but they'd be there.
INeedMoreRam 4y ago
My solution is using uBlock Origin without signing in to Google and a VPN. I'm not concerned about ads because I literally never see them. And uBlock blocks the tracking. Do you not use uBlock Origin? https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpa...
- t0bia_s 4y ago
  Your browser has unique fingerprint regardless of VPN or uBlock. If you want be anonymous, use Tor.
DavideNL 4y ago
Perhaps check https://kagi.com/pricing https://kagi.com/pricing A good search engine, also uses Google results I think.

kevinventullo 4y ago

If search engines were considered important enough to be a public utility, one could be funded by taxpayer dollars. Now of course, search results can be heavily politicized, but I suppose the same is true of which books a library decides to carry.

t0bia_s 4y ago
No. We need decentralised federated solution.
dymk 4y ago
Search engines are important, but they’re funded quite well with ads, so why would anybody go through the effort to make it a public utility?
- kevinventullo 4y ago
  I suppose if the government felt that ads-supported search engines had such misaligned incentives that it would be net beneficial for society to create one without such incentives, then that might serve as a justification. I don’t actually think this is plausible, just making an analogy with say private fire departments.
- autoexec 4y ago
  So that search engines work. Google search has been crippled by ads. Sometimes people just want nice stuff and a search engine that wasn't designed to mislead (https://www.theverge.com/2015/11/20/9768350/google-ads-search-results-ofcom https://www.theverge.com/2015/11/20/9768350/google-ads-searc...) and where the amount of money paid doesn't dictate what is easy to find would be a great asset to everybody. No company has risen to give us a powerful search engine that isn't also a cesspool of marketing bullshit so it would be reasonable for people to seek an option that serves the interests of the public.
yonaguska 4y ago
Yeah, I just don't trust the govt to not politicize search, or at the very least, to not use search results to manufacture consent or other nefarious intentions. NPR comes to mind. With private companies, at least there's some visage of a separation from state influence although we are seeing the lash back now with Twitter.

thewebcount 4y ago

It's a slippery slope though. We saw this with Google, so it's not like it's a straw man. First it's small, discrete ads to the side. Then it's the first few entries are ads, but are marked as such. Then it's the first page of entries. Then the marking disappears. (Yeah, they put it back eventually after a backlash. I wouldn't expect a company like Brave to do the same, though.) I just go with a search engine I pay for that doesn't offer any ad-supported stuff (kagi.com). That way, I'm directly supporting the service, and they have zero incentive to start showing me stuff that other people are paying for me to see and which I definitely don't want to see.

t0bia_s 4y ago
But there is no privacy with payed service. Your search history is linked with your credit card = name.
mgreg 4y ago
It's a very good point that companies will (eventually) look to maximize revenue and thus even companies that start out with grand ideas of being "different" succumb to that pressure. A strong countervailing force (in some markets) is competition. If Google had more competition (both in terms of a independent search service and access to be the default search option in browsers) they might have to start caring more about the search experience and privacy.
hannofcart 4y ago
> I wouldn't expect a company like Brave to do the same, though. Companies change. When the leadership/guard at a company changes, or with enough investor pressure, policies can easily change from benevolent to a money grab.

greyface- 4y ago

Make it a 501(c)(3) non-profit, like the Internet Archive or Wikipedia.

fsflover 4y ago
Or at least a Social Purpose Corporation like Purism.

SoftTalker 4y ago

> It's not like you can pay $3 to Google to get them to stop surveilling you. Well sort of. You can pay them for YouTube Premium and watch videos without ads. I might pay for an ad-free Google Search but I have developed an almost reflexive habit of ignoring the ads on Google Search anyway. It's much easier to just look past them in the search results, as opposed to when watching a video where you have no choice. And I'm sure they are surveilling me regardless.

r00fus 4y ago

> It's not like you can pay $3 to Google to get them to stop surveilling you. You can, at least for Youtube - the premium offering is ad-free. In fact, that's the only reason I subscribe - not the content - because my entire family uses my account or is part of my Google "family" to bypass YT ads. Worth the (ever increasing) monthly fee. My guess is that this only exists to foil Netflix, and if Netflix didn't have an ad-free service, Google would make this option cost a lot more or remove it entirely.

arepublicadoceu 4y ago
> You can, at least for Youtube - the premium offering is ad-free. ad-free =/= surveillance free.
- encryptluks2 4y ago
  Please offer some proof that Google does more surveillance than Brave.
  - NayamAmarshe 4y ago
    https://privacyspy.org https://privacyspy.org
  - taejavu 4y ago
    I mean, just the fact that they track your location would put their surveillance way ahead of Brave, no?
  - jlarocco 4y ago
    Assuming that's a good faith question (I'm skeptical), let's click through some random HN headlines and use uMatrix to count how many requests for Javascript and other garbage are being made to Google servers, and how many are made to Brave's servers. First off: https://www.deepmind.com/blog/mastering-stratego-the-classic-game-of-imperfect-information https://www.deepmind.com/blog/mastering-stratego-the-classic... By my count that has two requests to googleapis.com, one to gstatic.com, and one to googletagmanager, but none to any Brave sites. Next up: https://www.thefire.org/news/free-speech-culture-elon-musk-and-twitter https://www.thefire.org/news/free-speech-culture-elon-musk-a... Requests googletagmanager, but nothing from Brave. Next: https://www.countbayesie.com/blog/2022/11/30/understanding-convolutions-in-probability-a-mad-science-perspective https://www.countbayesie.com/blog/2022/11/30/understanding-c... Makes requests to googletagmanager ang googleapis.com. Brave completely missing. And: https://twitter.com/coinbasewallet/status/1598354819735031809 https://twitter.com/coinbasewallet/status/159835481973503180... Sends requests to google-analytics.com, but Brave is a no show again And finally: https://jakespracher.medium.com/machines-and-chaos-9f0e87eebe86 https://jakespracher.medium.com/machines-and-chaos-9f0e87eeb... Which uses google-analytics, but nothing from Brave. Practically every commercial website on the internet has Google spyware tied in somehow. And just to spell it out, every time your browser sends a request to one of the Google servers, they're keeping track and surveiling you.