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But this is also why Google "sucks now". The thesis of these competitors was that Google got worse because of bad product decisions or implementation failures.

But this is also why Google "sucks now". The thesis of these competitors was that Google got worse because of bad product decisions or implementation failures. But I found that to be a very questionable thesis from the start.

calessian 3mo ago
Google can both be worse because of the web results declining in quality and terrible product decisions. It is of course much easier to see one of the two, and make an alternative search interface possibly using different rating criteria. It just can’t solve the entire issue, because spam is also absolutely cheap to mass produce now.
- sanderjd 3mo ago
  Yes I agree. I don't begrudge competitors trying to do better at search at all. Maybe they'll succeed. I've just always been skeptical that they will be able to make significant progress on this problem, because I think the problem is ultimately garbage in garbage out.
- alex1138 3mo ago
  This is absolutely true and yet I know from experience the product forums for years were people screaming at Google for stripping away features And I know they removed the boolean + operator because of Google+
Arkhaine_kupo 3mo ago
> The thesis of these competitors was that Google got worse because of bad product decisions or implementation failures. But they did though. Google results got significantly worse after ads started lagging in revenue. So they hindered search and increased focus on the ad platform which shot up profits in 2019 I believe. The web becoming more inhospitable is true. But Google has the tools, the data, and the engineers to wade through the bs and return good results. They just rather have bad results and good ads because that is where their bread is buttered. A lot of competitors are working with a fraction of the budget, teams and data. So asking a small team to do proper AI detection, to return smaller indexed sites with high quality info over mass linked SEO abused hellscapes is very complicated, but asking Google to figure it out is proportional to their talent, expertise and resources. It just not going to move their bottom line, so search is de prioritised compared to ads (some might even argue its made worse on purpose to make ads look even better)
- sanderjd 3mo ago
  This is the thesis, I understand the thesis, I remain skeptical of it. In my view, search sucks now primarily because there just isn't much worth searching for on the open web anymore. I think the "it's Google's fault" thesis is mostly an unwillingness to admit this.
  - Henchman21 3mo ago
    I don't see why it can't be both. The web has less good content AND Google has altered their search results such that results are worse generally for us, but better for them and their bottom line.
    - sanderjd 3mo ago
      I'm not saying it isn't both, what I'm saying is that the thesis of the newer Google competitors is that the problem is mostly that Google has chosen to suck, so they can do a lot better just by choosing to not suck. But I think that thesis is wrong, that it is mostly that the web sucks now, and that these search engines are ultimately likely to be unsatisfying because they can't actually solve that underlying problem. But if I'm wrong, that would be great! The comment that started this thread made me think that it seems like I'm not wrong though.
      - PsylentKnight 3mo ago
        I think the counterargument would be that the web sucks in large part because of the way it’s been shaped by Google. Most of the hyperwordy blogspam is driven by sites trying to optimize their SEO for Google. So websites like Kagi could potentially push the underlying web in a positive direction
        sanderjd 3mo ago
        I don't buy this at all. There is no way for any search provider to avoid the arms race dynamic. Marketers will always have an incentive to appear first in results in order to capture an audience to monetize. "Just win the arms race then" sounds nice but it's wishful thinking, IMO. And I don't even think this is the primary issue with the web sucking. The web is just an entirely different thing than it was during the period we're all nostalgic for. I used to search for information and find it on independent pages that I never would have found without a search engine. But now that same information I used to search for is all on wikipedia, with much better citations than I used to get. And pretty much everything other use case of search is now behind some social media walled garden. IMO the web was kind of just a victim of its own success. There stopped being much incentive to put new things on the web on a huge proliferation of independent sites. (NB. This is terrible for Google! If my take on this is right, then their business model is going to eventually be in real trouble. This is another reason I'm pretty skeptical that they have caused this to happen. It's bad for them, I don't think they're happy about it at all.)

calessian 3mo ago

Google can both be worse because of the web results declining in quality and terrible product decisions. It is of course much easier to see one of the two, and make an alternative search interface possibly using different rating criteria. It just can’t solve the entire issue, because spam is also absolutely cheap to mass produce now.

sanderjd 3mo ago
Yes I agree. I don't begrudge competitors trying to do better at search at all. Maybe they'll succeed. I've just always been skeptical that they will be able to make significant progress on this problem, because I think the problem is ultimately garbage in garbage out.
alex1138 3mo ago
This is absolutely true and yet I know from experience the product forums for years were people screaming at Google for stripping away features And I know they removed the boolean + operator because of Google+

Arkhaine_kupo 3mo ago

> The thesis of these competitors was that Google got worse because of bad product decisions or implementation failures. But they did though. Google results got significantly worse after ads started lagging in revenue. So they hindered search and increased focus on the ad platform which shot up profits in 2019 I believe. The web becoming more inhospitable is true. But Google has the tools, the data, and the engineers to wade through the bs and return good results. They just rather have bad results and good ads because that is where their bread is buttered. A lot of competitors are working with a fraction of the budget, teams and data. So asking a small team to do proper AI detection, to return smaller indexed sites with high quality info over mass linked SEO abused hellscapes is very complicated, but asking Google to figure it out is proportional to their talent, expertise and resources. It just not going to move their bottom line, so search is de prioritised compared to ads (some might even argue its made worse on purpose to make ads look even better)

sanderjd 3mo ago
This is the thesis, I understand the thesis, I remain skeptical of it. In my view, search sucks now primarily because there just isn't much worth searching for on the open web anymore. I think the "it's Google's fault" thesis is mostly an unwillingness to admit this.
- Henchman21 3mo ago
  I don't see why it can't be both. The web has less good content AND Google has altered their search results such that results are worse generally for us, but better for them and their bottom line.
  - sanderjd 3mo ago
    I'm not saying it isn't both, what I'm saying is that the thesis of the newer Google competitors is that the problem is mostly that Google has chosen to suck, so they can do a lot better just by choosing to not suck. But I think that thesis is wrong, that it is mostly that the web sucks now, and that these search engines are ultimately likely to be unsatisfying because they can't actually solve that underlying problem. But if I'm wrong, that would be great! The comment that started this thread made me think that it seems like I'm not wrong though.
    - PsylentKnight 3mo ago
      I think the counterargument would be that the web sucks in large part because of the way it’s been shaped by Google. Most of the hyperwordy blogspam is driven by sites trying to optimize their SEO for Google. So websites like Kagi could potentially push the underlying web in a positive direction
      - sanderjd 3mo ago
        I don't buy this at all. There is no way for any search provider to avoid the arms race dynamic. Marketers will always have an incentive to appear first in results in order to capture an audience to monetize. "Just win the arms race then" sounds nice but it's wishful thinking, IMO. And I don't even think this is the primary issue with the web sucking. The web is just an entirely different thing than it was during the period we're all nostalgic for. I used to search for information and find it on independent pages that I never would have found without a search engine. But now that same information I used to search for is all on wikipedia, with much better citations than I used to get. And pretty much everything other use case of search is now behind some social media walled garden. IMO the web was kind of just a victim of its own success. There stopped being much incentive to put new things on the web on a huge proliferation of independent sites. (NB. This is terrible for Google! If my take on this is right, then their business model is going to eventually be in real trouble. This is another reason I'm pretty skeptical that they have caused this to happen. It's bad for them, I don't think they're happy about it at all.)