3 ms·

Agreed that it's not intuitive. My guess is that it's not a network effect in the traditional sense (where having more users makes the product more valuable), b

by tqi 3y ago

Agreed that it's not intuitive. My guess is that it's not a network effect in the traditional sense (where having more users makes the product more valuable), but rather that there is something about a product category being free that lends itself to being winner take all. Users are less motivated to comparison shop, and if any one company gets enough marketshare to be a default choice then maybe it just snowballs. Like if tissues were free, would Kleenex have a monopoly bc everyone just reaches for it by default?

j-wang 3y ago
Potentially—I suppose free can lead to more justifiable laziness in finding different resources for different things. The argument I generally hear from certain microeconomists is that they still expect there to be value in niches, given Google's highly general nature. If you're looking for super specific topics, it often doesn't perform extremely well. You'd find it valuable to go to a resource tailored for your area. Anecdotal, but I've personally found it to be true—for specific hobbies, or for more "real" reviews, I search reddit. Except I use Google to search reddit, since reddit's search sucks, but still. Amazon or Etsy or whatever can be considered "search engines" for highly specific topics (purchases, and purchases of a specific type of product) and they do have success there too, but Google is still often the front-page to get people to those sites. Maybe it's just that Google is just a default "front-page" and enough tech-non-savvy people just use it to get to where they want to go (e.g. the classic "type Facebook into Google to get to Facebook") that it sticks. That's maybe the most compelling reason I've heard, but it is also somewhat unsatisfying as well (as well as precarious if the defaults ever change—but maybe that's true!).
- tqi 3y ago
  > The argument I generally hear from certain microeconomists is that they still expect there to be value in niches, given Google's highly general nature. If you're looking for super specific topics, it often doesn't perform extremely well. You'd find it valuable to go to a resource tailored for your area. I think that is true, but only within a very narrow band of topics that are broad enough to require a search functionality (lexusnexus, webmd, arxiv, etc). I think most topic niches that I would be interested in are more often served by niche publications (ie I wouldn't need/want a search engine geared toward photography, I would mostly go to specific publications and sites that I trust).

by tqi 3y ago

j-wang 3y ago

Potentially—I suppose free can lead to more justifiable laziness in finding different resources for different things. The argument I generally hear from certain microeconomists is that they still expect there to be value in niches, given Google's highly general nature. If you're looking for super specific topics, it often doesn't perform extremely well. You'd find it valuable to go to a resource tailored for your area. Anecdotal, but I've personally found it to be true—for specific hobbies, or for more "real" reviews, I search reddit. Except I use Google to search reddit, since reddit's search sucks, but still. Amazon or Etsy or whatever can be considered "search engines" for highly specific topics (purchases, and purchases of a specific type of product) and they do have success there too, but Google is still often the front-page to get people to those sites. Maybe it's just that Google is just a default "front-page" and enough tech-non-savvy people just use it to get to where they want to go (e.g. the classic "type Facebook into Google to get to Facebook") that it sticks. That's maybe the most compelling reason I've heard, but it is also somewhat unsatisfying as well (as well as precarious if the defaults ever change—but maybe that's true!).

tqi 3y ago
> The argument I generally hear from certain microeconomists is that they still expect there to be value in niches, given Google's highly general nature. If you're looking for super specific topics, it often doesn't perform extremely well. You'd find it valuable to go to a resource tailored for your area. I think that is true, but only within a very narrow band of topics that are broad enough to require a search functionality (lexusnexus, webmd, arxiv, etc). I think most topic niches that I would be interested in are more often served by niche publications (ie I wouldn't need/want a search engine geared toward photography, I would mostly go to specific publications and sites that I trust).