4 ms·

I know nothing here, but isn't that also the difference: Meta is just trying out things, and can find that killer application later. Google meanwhile existentia

I know nothing here, but isn't that also the difference: Meta is just trying out things, and can find that killer application later. Google meanwhile existentially feels that search must be the killer application, and tries to shoehorn everything into that. And in doing so put the bar for success so, so high, ignoring where things are really at.

SXX 2y ago
Problem is that Google core product is not search, but ads. Over years they were slowly degrading search experience because making search better, faster and more efficient means we would spend less time watching ads. Situation is the same on YouTube where Google have insane market monopoly, but still depreoritize actual creators who made their platform successful to appeal to brands and push more and more ads. Demonetization of everything ever slightly controversial. Somehow Google index whole internet 100 times a day, their OS run on majority of smartphones, their browser is monopoly, they know everything about everyone, but can't even filter spam efficiently. I never liked or used Facebook / Instagram much, but at least Meta core products are not deteriorating at same insane pace Google products are. I can still use WhatsApp daily without ads being fed down my throat.
- ffsm8 2y ago
  > Over years they were slowly degrading search experience because making search better, faster and more efficient means we would spend less time watching ads. That honestly sounds like revisionism to fit your narrative. Occam's razor would decree that the degradation simply came through SEO, and it's inverse correlation of quality (SEO means essentially pushing terrible content higher for advertising revenue) It most likely wasn't Google's aim to reduce their search quality, it was just a side effect of them becoming too successful, that it became unreasonably profitable to game the system
  - SXX 2y ago
    Google actually have a daily history of internet available on palm of their hand as well as insane access to both user behaviour (Android, Chrome) and website statistics (Analytics, Adsense, Google DNS, etc). They had the power to not succumb to "SEO" content spam, but this wouldn't improve their ads revenue baseline. Pushing their own services and centralised internet on other hand...
  - zo1 2y ago
    The feedback loop with Google is they got better and better at indexing everything, so more "indexable" content got created to take advantage of it. There was probably some sort of tipping point where normal human behavior and content-generation couldn't keep up with Google's increased capability, so the increase came in generated/copied/llmd/spam content which outpaced the natural growth of real content. This further pushed google to get better and better at "indexing" everything, making the issue worse. Cherry on top for Google: Due to the sheer "volume" of content this loop ended up creating, it posed a larger moat for any new entrants into the search market thus strengthening their monopoly position. There will be a subsequent tipping point: Where due to the sheer volume of generated/spammed/seo crap on the internet, the volume of "real" content will be so small that it'll become within reach of being indexable again by smaller players. We're already seeing this to some extent, and it'll only get better.
    - Majromax 2y ago
      > Where due to the sheer volume of generated/spammed/seo crap on the internet, the volume of "real" content will be so small that it'll become within reach of being indexable again by smaller players. Will it be discoverable, though?
  - croes 2y ago
    It wasn't SSO that put ads before the real search results. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40133976 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40133976
    - schmidtleonard 2y ago
      SEO didn't get rid of the yellow backgrounds on ads either. A few times during the peak of LLM fever I found that I could search an LLM-related term and get zero organic results above the fold. Every visible "result" was actually an ad disguised as a result.
- autoexec 2y ago
  For a long time Search was what Google needed you to use in order to collect massive amounts of personal information about you. Today they have Android, and Gmail, and youtube, and Nest, and fitbit, and Maps, and Chrome all feeding google a steady stream of data on the most intimate details of your life. Google doesn't need Search anymore to track what you're doing online or to learn about what you're doing offline, so Search gets neglected and filled with an ever increasing amount of ads and trash. If you have a website, all the spam and AI garbage filling up Google's search results can make it very hard for people to find your website using Google. Don't worry though, because you can pay Google to fix the problem Google has made for you, in fact, you might increasingly feel like you need to pay Google to fix the problem they're causing you or people won't be able to find your website at all. You can try to tell people your domain name, but Google has trained the pubic to search from the address bar and they've mostly forgotten what a URL even is.

SXX 2y ago

Problem is that Google core product is not search, but ads. Over years they were slowly degrading search experience because making search better, faster and more efficient means we would spend less time watching ads. Situation is the same on YouTube where Google have insane market monopoly, but still depreoritize actual creators who made their platform successful to appeal to brands and push more and more ads. Demonetization of everything ever slightly controversial. Somehow Google index whole internet 100 times a day, their OS run on majority of smartphones, their browser is monopoly, they know everything about everyone, but can't even filter spam efficiently. I never liked or used Facebook / Instagram much, but at least Meta core products are not deteriorating at same insane pace Google products are. I can still use WhatsApp daily without ads being fed down my throat.

ffsm8 2y ago
> Over years they were slowly degrading search experience because making search better, faster and more efficient means we would spend less time watching ads. That honestly sounds like revisionism to fit your narrative. Occam's razor would decree that the degradation simply came through SEO, and it's inverse correlation of quality (SEO means essentially pushing terrible content higher for advertising revenue) It most likely wasn't Google's aim to reduce their search quality, it was just a side effect of them becoming too successful, that it became unreasonably profitable to game the system
- SXX 2y ago
  Google actually have a daily history of internet available on palm of their hand as well as insane access to both user behaviour (Android, Chrome) and website statistics (Analytics, Adsense, Google DNS, etc). They had the power to not succumb to "SEO" content spam, but this wouldn't improve their ads revenue baseline. Pushing their own services and centralised internet on other hand...
- zo1 2y ago
  The feedback loop with Google is they got better and better at indexing everything, so more "indexable" content got created to take advantage of it. There was probably some sort of tipping point where normal human behavior and content-generation couldn't keep up with Google's increased capability, so the increase came in generated/copied/llmd/spam content which outpaced the natural growth of real content. This further pushed google to get better and better at "indexing" everything, making the issue worse. Cherry on top for Google: Due to the sheer "volume" of content this loop ended up creating, it posed a larger moat for any new entrants into the search market thus strengthening their monopoly position. There will be a subsequent tipping point: Where due to the sheer volume of generated/spammed/seo crap on the internet, the volume of "real" content will be so small that it'll become within reach of being indexable again by smaller players. We're already seeing this to some extent, and it'll only get better.
  - Majromax 2y ago
    > Where due to the sheer volume of generated/spammed/seo crap on the internet, the volume of "real" content will be so small that it'll become within reach of being indexable again by smaller players. Will it be discoverable, though?
- croes 2y ago
  It wasn't SSO that put ads before the real search results. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40133976 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40133976
  - schmidtleonard 2y ago
    SEO didn't get rid of the yellow backgrounds on ads either. A few times during the peak of LLM fever I found that I could search an LLM-related term and get zero organic results above the fold. Every visible "result" was actually an ad disguised as a result.
autoexec 2y ago
For a long time Search was what Google needed you to use in order to collect massive amounts of personal information about you. Today they have Android, and Gmail, and youtube, and Nest, and fitbit, and Maps, and Chrome all feeding google a steady stream of data on the most intimate details of your life. Google doesn't need Search anymore to track what you're doing online or to learn about what you're doing offline, so Search gets neglected and filled with an ever increasing amount of ads and trash. If you have a website, all the spam and AI garbage filling up Google's search results can make it very hard for people to find your website using Google. Don't worry though, because you can pay Google to fix the problem Google has made for you, in fact, you might increasingly feel like you need to pay Google to fix the problem they're causing you or people won't be able to find your website at all. You can try to tell people your domain name, but Google has trained the pubic to search from the address bar and they've mostly forgotten what a URL even is.