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I agree. For what it's worth, I think Google's business model is in trouble. They're putting in heroic effort to stay relevant during this shift to AI search, b

I agree. For what it's worth, I think Google's business model is in trouble. They're putting in heroic effort to stay relevant during this shift to AI search, but how does their advertising model work when people expect summarised and accurate information instead of scrolling pages of ads? The search space is actually not that unhealthy. There are competitors. They just lack the reach of Google. These competitor will become increasingly useful when our personal AIs plug into them to search for the right info. That said, I think the old internet business model is dying. Why will people write articles and pay for hosting if they can't receive any advertising revenue? I think I'm okay with this. Before advertising decimated the free internet, people ran sites for fun. Maybe we return to that.

sandworm101 5mo ago
>> but how does their advertising model work when people expect summarised and accurate information instead of scrolling pages of ads? 1) because that fancy summarised results page will effectively be the ad. The results will push you towards google's partner sites or promote behavior benificial to them. 2) because partners may soon be able to pay to change the results of searches. Who won an election 20 years ago? That "fact" from the AI could depend on which answer has been sponsored by which political interest. What happened in china in 1989 ... how much money do you have? 3) the user becomes the product. No ads in search results, but our searches and online behavior tracked by them will be sold to whoever is most interested in what we do online.
b112 5mo ago
Hanging my comment here, not blaming the parent poster, it's just relevant... All the "AI search" I've tried is far less relevant than a proper search, using search engines without it seems much faster and more relevant. Whenever I get AI search results, its summaries lack substance, are often just plain wrong, and so on. When I check, it's often usong the wrong aggregate data to return results. Search engines these days, traditional ones, have been hobbled by targeting the lowest common denominator. They drop search terms, alias them (eg, Joe=Joseph,Josephene, Jodiene), and thus return endless bad results. Using "web" search on Google, for example, putting all search terms in quotes, helps enormously. If searching for Joe Baker, you don't want aliased responses. My point is, AI is yet another abstracted layer. It not only aliases things, it halucinates, and further, it doesn't even show the context it simply summarizes. It's the next layer of crappiness. As a side note, there os a product in my home country called the Swiffer. It is like a broom, but uses disposable sticky paper instead of broom bristles and a scoop. Point is, it isn't very environmentally friendly. I weirdly see environmentalists using it, instead of just a good old broom. And now I see environmentalists using AI for search. What? Why! The sheer additional power and cost, all the new datacenters, hardware, just for what?? Even of one believes it is mildly better (which it isn't, if you use traditional search properly), are you now replacing your broom with a swiffer?! The amount of environmentalism that goes out the window, for convenience, astonishes me.
- bookofjoe 5mo ago
  >All the "AI search" I've tried is far less relevant than a proper search, using search engines without it seems much faster and more relevant. I've had the opposite experience with Perplexity Pro. Yesterday it took just under nine minutes to deliver a detailed and accurate answer as to the nearest locations where I can buy Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses (at least 3 hours drive away FWIW) that day. In the past several months I've spent countless hours using search engines with dismal results that weren't close to that.
- sandworm101 5mo ago
  It is totally dependant on context. Ask about product purchases/prices and it will give you great results. Ask for basic data and it will quote wikipedia or government websites all day. Ask for a coding solution and it will spit out answers ripped from the corners of github. But i asked google about hydrogen-3 recently and got back a result saying that we were mining it on the moon. An entire space economy was invented because AI cannot tell scifi from reality. The real test: dont test AI by asking it questions you already know. Ask it a proper question and then go out and find the answer yourself. That is where AI really falls down, the non-trivial stuff.
- gosub100 5mo ago
  Regarding a swiffer: it's a zero sum game. Where did the materials come from? The earth. Where did they return after use? The earth. The only thing changed was the energy used to create and transport them. If conserving energy was important, none of these AI datacenters would be built, none of our items would be shipped across the planet from Asia. They would conserve energy and import raw materials only.
- taude 5mo ago
  I’ve experienced the opposite. I get good summaries with links for original sources when something seeems off, which it almost never does. I also like that I can glance to see where the data came from. Several months ago, I was getting hallucinations and silly answers, like Jaco Pastoreous being the bass player for Metallica. but lately it’s been great. Especially for technical syntax stuff, like asking for syntax on a jq command, or sal syntax, or something trivial like movie casts members…. Edit: I also assume there’s now some pre-processing filter to retrieve answers from a cache or something, because I’m getting pretty long answers very quickly….
bookofjoe 5mo ago
>... I think Google's business model is in trouble. >Google parent Alphabet profit jumps 81% in Big Tech earnings roundup https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/04/30/google-parent-alphabet-profit-jumps-81-in-big-tech-earnings-roundup https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/04/30/google-parent-a...
- jfil 5mo ago
  Both could be true. I think Google is milking their main asset and tanking it, before the party ends.
- keeda 5mo ago
  This comment thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47954579 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47954579 is relevant. TL;DR: Google is heavily stuffing more and more ads into every monetizable SERP, which explains the ever-increasing revenue. But my theory (expanded in more detail here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47957708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47957708) is that its cash cow is heavily optimized towards its current anti-competitive, multi-sided chokehold of the online ad market -- look up the AdTech Antitrust findings around manipulating ad auctions, e.g. Project Bernanke -- which relies on ad volume. With agents however, I suspect that volume will shrink drastically even if they stuff ads at each step of the conversation. Because it's only the final click that will matter, and those ads will be meaningless. It's not clear that Google can charge enough for that final click to compensate for the loss of both, the value of all the ads that lead to it, as well as their ad auction manipulation premium.
eitally 5mo ago
Anecdotally, I find Google's AI Search results to be genuinely helpful much of the time, and the box isn't so intrusive that it prevents me from digging into literal search results if I am not satisfied with the AI summary.
simulator5g 5mo ago
The new business model is misinformation sold by the highest bidder. Ask it what's the most reliable kind of computer, it answers with whoever paid the most this week.

sandworm101 5mo ago

>> but how does their advertising model work when people expect summarised and accurate information instead of scrolling pages of ads? 1) because that fancy summarised results page will effectively be the ad. The results will push you towards google's partner sites or promote behavior benificial to them. 2) because partners may soon be able to pay to change the results of searches. Who won an election 20 years ago? That "fact" from the AI could depend on which answer has been sponsored by which political interest. What happened in china in 1989 ... how much money do you have? 3) the user becomes the product. No ads in search results, but our searches and online behavior tracked by them will be sold to whoever is most interested in what we do online.

b112 5mo ago

Hanging my comment here, not blaming the parent poster, it's just relevant... All the "AI search" I've tried is far less relevant than a proper search, using search engines without it seems much faster and more relevant. Whenever I get AI search results, its summaries lack substance, are often just plain wrong, and so on. When I check, it's often usong the wrong aggregate data to return results. Search engines these days, traditional ones, have been hobbled by targeting the lowest common denominator. They drop search terms, alias them (eg, Joe=Joseph,Josephene, Jodiene), and thus return endless bad results. Using "web" search on Google, for example, putting all search terms in quotes, helps enormously. If searching for Joe Baker, you don't want aliased responses. My point is, AI is yet another abstracted layer. It not only aliases things, it halucinates, and further, it doesn't even show the context it simply summarizes. It's the next layer of crappiness. As a side note, there os a product in my home country called the Swiffer. It is like a broom, but uses disposable sticky paper instead of broom bristles and a scoop. Point is, it isn't very environmentally friendly. I weirdly see environmentalists using it, instead of just a good old broom. And now I see environmentalists using AI for search. What? Why! The sheer additional power and cost, all the new datacenters, hardware, just for what?? Even of one believes it is mildly better (which it isn't, if you use traditional search properly), are you now replacing your broom with a swiffer?! The amount of environmentalism that goes out the window, for convenience, astonishes me.

bookofjoe 5mo ago
>All the "AI search" I've tried is far less relevant than a proper search, using search engines without it seems much faster and more relevant. I've had the opposite experience with Perplexity Pro. Yesterday it took just under nine minutes to deliver a detailed and accurate answer as to the nearest locations where I can buy Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses (at least 3 hours drive away FWIW) that day. In the past several months I've spent countless hours using search engines with dismal results that weren't close to that.
sandworm101 5mo ago
It is totally dependant on context. Ask about product purchases/prices and it will give you great results. Ask for basic data and it will quote wikipedia or government websites all day. Ask for a coding solution and it will spit out answers ripped from the corners of github. But i asked google about hydrogen-3 recently and got back a result saying that we were mining it on the moon. An entire space economy was invented because AI cannot tell scifi from reality. The real test: dont test AI by asking it questions you already know. Ask it a proper question and then go out and find the answer yourself. That is where AI really falls down, the non-trivial stuff.
gosub100 5mo ago
Regarding a swiffer: it's a zero sum game. Where did the materials come from? The earth. Where did they return after use? The earth. The only thing changed was the energy used to create and transport them. If conserving energy was important, none of these AI datacenters would be built, none of our items would be shipped across the planet from Asia. They would conserve energy and import raw materials only.
taude 5mo ago
I’ve experienced the opposite. I get good summaries with links for original sources when something seeems off, which it almost never does. I also like that I can glance to see where the data came from. Several months ago, I was getting hallucinations and silly answers, like Jaco Pastoreous being the bass player for Metallica. but lately it’s been great. Especially for technical syntax stuff, like asking for syntax on a jq command, or sal syntax, or something trivial like movie casts members…. Edit: I also assume there’s now some pre-processing filter to retrieve answers from a cache or something, because I’m getting pretty long answers very quickly….

bookofjoe 5mo ago

>... I think Google's business model is in trouble. >Google parent Alphabet profit jumps 81% in Big Tech earnings roundup https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/04/30/google-parent-alphabet-profit-jumps-81-in-big-tech-earnings-roundup https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/04/30/google-parent-a...

jfil 5mo ago
Both could be true. I think Google is milking their main asset and tanking it, before the party ends.
keeda 5mo ago
This comment thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47954579 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47954579 is relevant. TL;DR: Google is heavily stuffing more and more ads into every monetizable SERP, which explains the ever-increasing revenue. But my theory (expanded in more detail here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47957708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47957708) is that its cash cow is heavily optimized towards its current anti-competitive, multi-sided chokehold of the online ad market -- look up the AdTech Antitrust findings around manipulating ad auctions, e.g. Project Bernanke -- which relies on ad volume. With agents however, I suspect that volume will shrink drastically even if they stuff ads at each step of the conversation. Because it's only the final click that will matter, and those ads will be meaningless. It's not clear that Google can charge enough for that final click to compensate for the loss of both, the value of all the ads that lead to it, as well as their ad auction manipulation premium.

eitally 5mo ago

Anecdotally, I find Google's AI Search results to be genuinely helpful much of the time, and the box isn't so intrusive that it prevents me from digging into literal search results if I am not satisfied with the AI summary.

simulator5g 5mo ago

The new business model is misinformation sold by the highest bidder. Ask it what's the most reliable kind of computer, it answers with whoever paid the most this week.