3 ms·

My general stance is to be more aggressive with antitrust matters than the US tends to be. However, antitrust doesn't (and shouldn't) protect you from competit

by jmyeet 3y ago

My general stance is to be more aggressive with antitrust matters than the US tends to be. However, antitrust doesn't (and shouldn't) protect you from competition. Too often I see companies just do a really bad job and the leadership just sits there collecting a paycheck and complaining to Congress about [big bad company]. Yelp is the poster child for this. Arguably even Mozilla is guilty of this [1]. DDG ultimately is just repackaged Bing search results. Bing itself lags behind Google and has the resources of a trillion dollar company behind it. It's not just a question of how much money you have but how you spend it. Look at Blue Origin. Look at the Metaverse. So DDG's upper bound seems to be however good Bing is and honestly Bing isn't that good. What is their path to improving? I'm not sure they have one. But I don't think Google's relationship with Apple is the core problem. Back in the day, Microsoft got in trouble (rightly) for bundling the browser. That's because the barrier to installing a new browser was quite high. Here phone manufacturers give you a dropdown to change it (which I think they should be required to do, as they are). Antitrust won't solve poor execution. [1]: https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html

rat9988 3y ago
"So DDG's upper bound seems to be however good Bing is and honestly Bing isn't that good. What is their path to improving? I'm not sure they have one. But I don't think Google's relationship with Apple is the core problem." To improve it you need money, and you won't get any if the competition field isn't even. So, it's part of the core problem. It's very reductive to look at it and say you are bad because you lack research and development in this front, but you have to look at the whole picture. "What is their path to improving? I'm not sure they have one." Doesn't mean they don't have one.
- madeofpalk 3y ago
  Are you saying Microsoft doesn't have enough money to make Bing better? How many dollars would it cost to make Bing better?
- jmyeet 3y ago
  I specifically addressed this with the examples of Microsoft's billions not stopping Bing lagging behind Google, Meta spending billions on the Metaverse and Bezos spending billions on Jeff Bezos (and still not getting to orbit after 25 years). DDG could improve if Bing improves so the problem isn't Google, it's Bing and DDG's strategy.
WildGreenLeave 3y ago
I've been using Kagi [0] since a few months and I am extremely surprised how well it works. With DDG it took a few months and then I just added !g everywhere because I never found what I was looking for. With Kagi I almost never do that, every now and then I think I am not able to find what I expect and then I add !g, so far it hasn't given me more then what Kagi gives me. So, I am wondering how much money you would really need. Because if Kagi can do it, why can't Bing do it? [0]: https://kagi.com https://kagi.com
- CPLX 3y ago
  I have also switched to Kagi as my primary engine and feel no reason to use Google any more for anything but local and maps stuff. Which is a lot. So I use Google a lot. But still, very impressed with Kagi.
  - ravenstine 3y ago
    Besides YouTube, Maps is one of the very remaining reasons I visit The Google's domains. For some reason I'm not entirely sure about, besides the inherent difficulties involved, there seems to be no serious competition in that space. Sure, we can get basic maps and directions from other services, but what about things like time estimates and street view? Kagi is awesome otherwise, by the way. I'll keep saying it so more people hear about it. DDG, on the other hand, has gone way downhill. I still sometimes use it if I am using a private browser window. It's flat out terrible. Even with safe search turned off, it's clearly been dumbed down to be PG-rated. It misses a lot of things it used to not. I don't get how they are going to stay solvent down the road without money being continuously set on fire.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - Obscurity4340 3y ago
      Try MagicEarth, let me know what you think
znpy 3y ago
> My general stance is to be more aggressive with antitrust matters than the US tends to be. i can't stress enough how right you are on this. we literally got the IBM PC as a fairly open platform because IBM at the time had just got out of a very lengthy and serious anti-trust case and didn't want to even risk getting into another one. we literally owe the revolution that the ibm pc has been to antitrust laws.
riversflow 3y ago
> DDG ultimately is just repackaged Bing search results. That was true at one time. I've been using DDG for many years; daily drive it and Firefox, but have been experimenting with Edge and Bing, now Copilot. Honestly, Bing search is amazing, better than google in my head-to-heads for quick reference or learning about something your not as familiar with. Both have a lot of "data field" results, which I want to curmudgeon about being distracting but are honestly quite handy sometimes, same goes for suggested searches. DDG is very old school by comparison, but that's also what I want when I'm drilling down. An aside, I'm surprised that nobody really talks about Edge. I run Firefox specifically because I don't want to run V8. Edge has a really good implementation Tree style Tabs, another feature I refuse to sacrifice, and overall it's featureful but still fast, the only thing it's missing is never getting implemented, containers. The LLM integration though is super cool, and makes me wonder what iPhones will be like when Apple finally gets this tech in it's products.

by jmyeet 3y ago

rat9988 3y ago

"So DDG's upper bound seems to be however good Bing is and honestly Bing isn't that good. What is their path to improving? I'm not sure they have one. But I don't think Google's relationship with Apple is the core problem." To improve it you need money, and you won't get any if the competition field isn't even. So, it's part of the core problem. It's very reductive to look at it and say you are bad because you lack research and development in this front, but you have to look at the whole picture. "What is their path to improving? I'm not sure they have one." Doesn't mean they don't have one.

madeofpalk 3y ago
Are you saying Microsoft doesn't have enough money to make Bing better? How many dollars would it cost to make Bing better?
jmyeet 3y ago
I specifically addressed this with the examples of Microsoft's billions not stopping Bing lagging behind Google, Meta spending billions on the Metaverse and Bezos spending billions on Jeff Bezos (and still not getting to orbit after 25 years). DDG could improve if Bing improves so the problem isn't Google, it's Bing and DDG's strategy.

WildGreenLeave 3y ago

I've been using Kagi [0] since a few months and I am extremely surprised how well it works. With DDG it took a few months and then I just added !g everywhere because I never found what I was looking for. With Kagi I almost never do that, every now and then I think I am not able to find what I expect and then I add !g, so far it hasn't given me more then what Kagi gives me. So, I am wondering how much money you would really need. Because if Kagi can do it, why can't Bing do it? [0]: https://kagi.com https://kagi.com

CPLX 3y ago
I have also switched to Kagi as my primary engine and feel no reason to use Google any more for anything but local and maps stuff. Which is a lot. So I use Google a lot. But still, very impressed with Kagi.
- ravenstine 3y ago
  Besides YouTube, Maps is one of the very remaining reasons I visit The Google's domains. For some reason I'm not entirely sure about, besides the inherent difficulties involved, there seems to be no serious competition in that space. Sure, we can get basic maps and directions from other services, but what about things like time estimates and street view? Kagi is awesome otherwise, by the way. I'll keep saying it so more people hear about it. DDG, on the other hand, has gone way downhill. I still sometimes use it if I am using a private browser window. It's flat out terrible. Even with safe search turned off, it's clearly been dumbed down to be PG-rated. It misses a lot of things it used to not. I don't get how they are going to stay solvent down the road without money being continuously set on fire.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - Obscurity4340 3y ago
    Try MagicEarth, let me know what you think

znpy 3y ago

> My general stance is to be more aggressive with antitrust matters than the US tends to be. i can't stress enough how right you are on this. we literally got the IBM PC as a fairly open platform because IBM at the time had just got out of a very lengthy and serious anti-trust case and didn't want to even risk getting into another one. we literally owe the revolution that the ibm pc has been to antitrust laws.

riversflow 3y ago

> DDG ultimately is just repackaged Bing search results. That was true at one time. I've been using DDG for many years; daily drive it and Firefox, but have been experimenting with Edge and Bing, now Copilot. Honestly, Bing search is amazing, better than google in my head-to-heads for quick reference or learning about something your not as familiar with. Both have a lot of "data field" results, which I want to curmudgeon about being distracting but are honestly quite handy sometimes, same goes for suggested searches. DDG is very old school by comparison, but that's also what I want when I'm drilling down. An aside, I'm surprised that nobody really talks about Edge. I run Firefox specifically because I don't want to run V8. Edge has a really good implementation Tree style Tabs, another feature I refuse to sacrifice, and overall it's featureful but still fast, the only thing it's missing is never getting implemented, containers. The LLM integration though is super cool, and makes me wonder what iPhones will be like when Apple finally gets this tech in it's products.