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I think this is interesting because it matches my user experience with Google products in a very inverted way. Google search has gotten worse and worse lately,

I think this is interesting because it matches my user experience with Google products in a very inverted way. Google search has gotten worse and worse lately, forcing me on to other search engines with worse UIs just so that I can get useful results. Youtube UI gets worse every time they update it. They cancelled the RSS reader. The email UI keeps getting worse and featuring more ads. But the stock value hit $1000. I guess they're doing something right, it's just not something that affects me in any positive way. [EDIT]:'affects', not 'effects'

lawdawg 13y ago
This is because Google has started optimizing for the 99% use case, which most HN'ers usually don't fall under. They originally optimized for what most Googlers like (who are generally the 1%) and have since learned that you can't run a business just pleasing the elite and whiny ones.
- golergka 13y ago
  I'm a bit confused about that. Doesn't their algorithm take the user's profile into account?
  - nonchalance 13y ago
    >Youtube UI gets worse every time they update it. They cancelled the RSS reader. The email UI keeps getting worse and featuring more ads. Those concerns are completely unrelated to their algorithm. I doubt they want to maintain many Youtube UIs.
  - antsar 13y ago
    Some of their algorithms, yes. But that doesn't mean that users who fall into the "elite and whiny" bunch get the privilege of using the service ad-free and in a format that doesn't work as well for their business.
  - pilsetnieks 13y ago
    I'm not in any way affiliated with Google but a Google employee has strongly and empathetically suggested to me that the ad people (and algorithms) have absolutely no access to user account data. That is the reason why AdWords location targeting is kinda broken currently (at least on non-mobile devices it relies on IP geolocation). If one day AdWords start serving geographically correct ads for everyone, that's the day when the ad people got access to account data.
- joelrunyon 13y ago
  > They originally optimized for what most Googlers like (who are generally the 1%) and have since learned that you can't run a business just pleasing the elite and whiny ones. Well you can - you just can't offer the service for free.
  - diminish 13y ago
    Quarter after quarter Google needs to monetize more. In their earnings announcements, they love to mention it's only a fraction of what Google can achieve. But their heavy monetization of web assets makes me think, they are at the beginning of the second half of their post IPO life. Of course the Glass, the Car, the Hardware may change everything. That final argument is valid for any company, even for startups and even more for YC startups.
    - marcofloriano 13y ago
      Google did not proved to be profitable outside internet, so far. So it´s a really bad bet to believe they will find a new cash cow, or even a new market in the near future.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    I think you can even do that. What you can't do is build a $300 billion company that way.
- iamhungry 13y ago
  Data shows differently. Google AD CLICKS increased by 22% and PPC went down 4%-8% so Googe made it up on volume. If showing more ads and/or making ads better than organic search is "optimizing for the 99% use case" then you aright. But as shown on a few comments below Google in many cases shows only ads on the first browser screen. Terrible for users and terrible for Google long term. They should enjoy the steroid boost while it lasts.
- r0h1n 13y ago
  Surely it can't be the case that Google was serving the 1% till recently. Their products - Gmail, YouTube, Android, Search, Maps etc. - are all leaders in their categories. So the 1%-to-99% argument doesn't quite hold. I personally think Google held itself back from OTT monetization strategies all these years as it waited for (a) its individual products to become undisputed market leaders, and (b) a unified privacy/social glue across all its products. Now that the majority of users are locked in to Google - to specific products and across their entire suite of products - they are lifting their self-imposed restraints on privacy/aesthetics/advertising.
  - epsylon 13y ago
    That's the wrong way to look at it. They served the whole 100%, and now they are starting to optimize for the 99% at the expense of the 1% of power users. (My guess would be more like 95% / 5%, but I may have a biased view myself) That's the only explanation to the whole set of stupid decisions they've been taking lately (reader, yt UI, gmail compose, ...): they make more cash by doing so.
    - criley2 13y ago
      Personally, I have noticed a multi-year trend towards serving that 95% at the expense of the 5%. I'm usually flamed or attacked for suggesting it in most forums, so it's very nice to see people experiencing the same thing with Google Hangouts is the perfect example. Instead of an easily sortable, easily curatable list of contacts with an easy way to see if they're available or not... now the whole product is shiny, with flashy animations, very little user control of any part of the software, and a whole bunch of Google's "we know best" design ideas like a "special mix" of "recent*" contacts that you cannot alter in any way without actually removing a contact from Google entirely.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Just as an example, they have made recent changes Maps that I, presumably somebody in that untargeted 1% demographic can't figure out. I'm not saying I don't like it, I'm saying I can't figure out how to use it. Maybe my inability to make heads of tails out of how to use the new Maps is a product of my technical inclination, maybe they have created something that I am too clever to use, but I don't find that very plausible. (specific examples: I can no longer find permalinks (let alone goo[dot]gl shortened permalinks... why was that not the default with old Maps?) and I can no longer figure out how to trigger streetview for any random location (I have only figured out that you can get to it if you click on a business first)).
turing 13y ago
And in my experience Google products have gotten significantly better and more polished in the last few years. Goes to show that their products aren't getting worse, just shifting in focus and priority.
- wtvanhest 13y ago
  Which products specifically have gotten better?
  - ChrisClark 13y ago
    It's all subjective but I love the new Gmail interfaces, Hangouts is much better than Talk and keeps getting better. Google+ photos is so much better than Picasa, I love how I can search for 'blue cars' in my photos and it returns them even though I've never tagged any of them. Android has seen enormous improvements, I love stock 4.3 and Google Now. Chrome's new 'native' apps wrapper-like thing is neat. Even Youtube has improved a little bit, they've got a nice nifty ajax loader bar up top instead of refreshing the entire page when you go to another video. But I guess with a different perspective, someone could argue how they don't like any of those changes. But for me, I love them.
    - toomuchtodo 13y ago
      The Hangouts experience on Android is an abomination. Its why I disabled (yes, fully disabled) Hangouts and switched to Whatsapp. Its that bad.
      - gabriele 13y ago
        I double that. It's slow, clunky and unnecessarily heavy. That's why most of my contacts have already switched to other platforms. Talk for Android 4, that added support for multiple accounts, was just good enough.
      - Keyframe 13y ago
        At least you have hangouts. </wp>
raldi 13y ago
> Google search has gotten worse and worse lately, forcing me on to other search engines with worse UIs just so that I can get useful results Can you give a few example queries?
- ProAm 13y ago
  These days I find Google is good for finding things you already know but don't remember. e.g. Number to my favorite Thai restaurant. But has become worse for finding things you don't know. I encounter this a lot when Im trying to find information related to my work but am not knowledgeable enough to narrow my keywords. Mainly programming or server related info....
  - raldi 13y ago
    Could you give an example query, and the non-Google search engine that gives better results?
    - iamhungry 13y ago
      Yes raldi, you seem to be really interested and probably believe the Google line. I searched for "sofas" and all I got was ads, ads, ads, ads, ads and then way below some results from companies that advertise on Google. Ads are for sofas but advertisers have an agenda and that's not always best for the users. Is that best for the user or for Google's pockets? I searched on DDG and got one ad.
    - ProAm 13y ago
      Right now I cannot. This is more of a generalization I've found over the past year or so (+/- ~6mos). Typically when it deals with work Im more interested in just finding an answer and move on to the next best resource. I guess this is true when Im at home and the results end up being more spam/ad based, e.g. finding a plumber with a good reputation. Probably not the definitive results driven answer you wanted but this is my experience and what I share with others when asked.
oellegaard 13y ago
+1 Their new Google Apps control panel is impossible to use. It has icons that doesn't correspond to the function and no labels. It's like walking around in a nuclear control panel with no lights on. While I'm moving my e-mail away from Google, the last thing I still use is the search, which still feels light weight and easy to use.
- chill1 13y ago
  > .. the last thing I still use is the search, which still feels light weight and easy to use. If you haven't, you should really give DuckDuckGo [1] a shot. I used Google's search for the longest time, and finally just forced myself to switch to DDG this summer. It was rough for a while, but either I've gotten used to their search algorithm / results, or the results have gotten better. I hardly ever have to use Google's search to find anything anymore. [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=duckduckgo https://duckduckgo.com/?q=duckduckgo
  - Semaphor 13y ago
    For me DDG is sometimes okay. Most of the time though, I want to be in the bubble google places me in. DDG gives me results for someone searching for X. Google gives me the X I want.
    - alex_doom 13y ago
      One thing that kills me is how terrible DDG is at parsing an address. If the street is misspelled at all you get nothing but real estate listings but if it's correct it shows a ghetto gif map from MapQuest :(
      - socillion 13y ago
        If you just want a map, "!map <address>" will send you to google maps with that address.
  - epsylon 13y ago
    DDG's search results are terrible for me most of the time. Though DDG as a frontend is quite nice. I use the bang shortcuts all the time. It's actually a better frontend to google's search than google's search itself: I can easily switch between google France results (which emphasize french speaking pages) and normal google results, something that I haven't been able to do in years since google.com/ncr (no country redirect) no longer works when you're logged in with a user account. Overall I love the idea of DDG's bangs. I've found many of them useful and you can infer those you don't know easily (if !a is amazon.com, then !afr is amazon.fr; !hn is very useful as well!)
foobarqux 13y ago
It's a good indication of market power (and therefore business value) when products get worse but users still buy.
pacofvf 13y ago
I hate the new UI for gmail, (mobile and web) is the worst aberration in the history of google UIs. For example for web, now they hide the "from", "cc", "cco" fields, also they moved the reply, reply to all and forward to a drop down menu. The attach, and format buttons now are tiny and moved to the bottom. In the mobile they removed the check-boxes so when you want to select multiple mails you have to keep pressed a mail until it becomes blue and to select the other mails you have to tap where it used to be a check-box and if you mistakenly tap the title of the mail then your selection is lost and it opens that mail in a new view. They also hided the "from", "cc", "cco" fields in the mobile version. I seriously considering to use other clients.
- Spittie 13y ago
  >In the mobile they removed the check-boxes so when you want to select multiple mails you have to keep pressed a mail until it becomes blue and to select the other mails you have to tap FYI, you can just tap on the email's avatar to select them. Maybe not the simplest interface, but it works well once you get used to it.
lnanek2 13y ago
Agreed. They are removing features that were quite valuable for me, especially in apps like Google Maps, and I absolutely hate the new ads that look like email rows in GMail and don't let me delete them. I can move off their web email client, but Maps is tough to replace. Will have to move to Apple or Nokia or something.
moultano 13y ago
If you have any example bad queries, I'd love to see them to debug. If you have your search history on, you can find them here: https://history.google.com/history/ https://history.google.com/history/
- iamhungry 13y ago
  If you have any example bad queries Hey Moultano, how come Google's ad clicks increased by 22% this quarter when Adsense was largely flat? Oh, I see. You decided that Google's properties are more "relevant" especially the ads. Nice scam you got going.
  - AlexMax 13y ago
    That doesn't look like an example bad query to me.
- leephillips 13y ago
  This is the exact reply you offered me a few weeks ago when we were complaining about w3schools ranking at the top of Google's results. Ultimately, your "debugging" amounted to explaining that you rank lower-quality results higher because they are more "popular", and therefore, somehow, more useful. I still don't understand the strategy of promoting less reliable, poorer quality information as a way to help the user. But it's easy to understand as a (short term) way to help Google, as these low-quality sites invariably carry Adsense, and the better sites often do not.
  - moultano 13y ago
    You didn't really give me a query to debug. I also don't think that's an accurate characterization. (Here's a link to the discussion for those curious. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6426892 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6426892) People like w3schools probably because it has code samples front and center on every page. People find that very useful, even though as a reference MDN might be better in an abstract sense.
    - 13y ago
jamra 13y ago
Shutting down reader will give them stock value. Google plus is now the aggregation of your niche content. Reader was obsoleted by Google plus. This makes it easier to track an individual as well as create more intelligence on ads for that individual's likes. More ads in the email app gives more revenue. Youtube is integrated into Google plus which helps them target ads even more. It makes a lot of sense to me.
tehwebguy 13y ago
Maybe shittier search results cause more clicks on the ads made to look like search results?
sahaj 13y ago
In my opinion, the increase in Google share price really has to do with the Motorola purchase. There is a potential that Motorola phones could some day be just as popular as Samsung or Apple - this a huge add to the share price and Google's revenue and profits. Just take 10% the market cap of Apple and Samsung and add it to Google, you'll see the picture.
epynonymous 13y ago
for the record, it's the 90 per cent use case.

lawdawg 13y ago

This is because Google has started optimizing for the 99% use case, which most HN'ers usually don't fall under. They originally optimized for what most Googlers like (who are generally the 1%) and have since learned that you can't run a business just pleasing the elite and whiny ones.

golergka 13y ago
I'm a bit confused about that. Doesn't their algorithm take the user's profile into account?
- nonchalance 13y ago
  >Youtube UI gets worse every time they update it. They cancelled the RSS reader. The email UI keeps getting worse and featuring more ads. Those concerns are completely unrelated to their algorithm. I doubt they want to maintain many Youtube UIs.
- antsar 13y ago
  Some of their algorithms, yes. But that doesn't mean that users who fall into the "elite and whiny" bunch get the privilege of using the service ad-free and in a format that doesn't work as well for their business.
- pilsetnieks 13y ago
  I'm not in any way affiliated with Google but a Google employee has strongly and empathetically suggested to me that the ad people (and algorithms) have absolutely no access to user account data. That is the reason why AdWords location targeting is kinda broken currently (at least on non-mobile devices it relies on IP geolocation). If one day AdWords start serving geographically correct ads for everyone, that's the day when the ad people got access to account data.
joelrunyon 13y ago
> They originally optimized for what most Googlers like (who are generally the 1%) and have since learned that you can't run a business just pleasing the elite and whiny ones. Well you can - you just can't offer the service for free.
- diminish 13y ago
  Quarter after quarter Google needs to monetize more. In their earnings announcements, they love to mention it's only a fraction of what Google can achieve. But their heavy monetization of web assets makes me think, they are at the beginning of the second half of their post IPO life. Of course the Glass, the Car, the Hardware may change everything. That final argument is valid for any company, even for startups and even more for YC startups.
  - marcofloriano 13y ago
    Google did not proved to be profitable outside internet, so far. So it´s a really bad bet to believe they will find a new cash cow, or even a new market in the near future.
- mikeash 13y ago
  I think you can even do that. What you can't do is build a $300 billion company that way.
iamhungry 13y ago
Data shows differently. Google AD CLICKS increased by 22% and PPC went down 4%-8% so Googe made it up on volume. If showing more ads and/or making ads better than organic search is "optimizing for the 99% use case" then you aright. But as shown on a few comments below Google in many cases shows only ads on the first browser screen. Terrible for users and terrible for Google long term. They should enjoy the steroid boost while it lasts.
r0h1n 13y ago
Surely it can't be the case that Google was serving the 1% till recently. Their products - Gmail, YouTube, Android, Search, Maps etc. - are all leaders in their categories. So the 1%-to-99% argument doesn't quite hold. I personally think Google held itself back from OTT monetization strategies all these years as it waited for (a) its individual products to become undisputed market leaders, and (b) a unified privacy/social glue across all its products. Now that the majority of users are locked in to Google - to specific products and across their entire suite of products - they are lifting their self-imposed restraints on privacy/aesthetics/advertising.
- epsylon 13y ago
  That's the wrong way to look at it. They served the whole 100%, and now they are starting to optimize for the 99% at the expense of the 1% of power users. (My guess would be more like 95% / 5%, but I may have a biased view myself) That's the only explanation to the whole set of stupid decisions they've been taking lately (reader, yt UI, gmail compose, ...): they make more cash by doing so.
  - criley2 13y ago
    Personally, I have noticed a multi-year trend towards serving that 95% at the expense of the 5%. I'm usually flamed or attacked for suggesting it in most forums, so it's very nice to see people experiencing the same thing with Google Hangouts is the perfect example. Instead of an easily sortable, easily curatable list of contacts with an easy way to see if they're available or not... now the whole product is shiny, with flashy animations, very little user control of any part of the software, and a whole bunch of Google's "we know best" design ideas like a "special mix" of "recent*" contacts that you cannot alter in any way without actually removing a contact from Google entirely.
jlgreco 13y ago
Just as an example, they have made recent changes Maps that I, presumably somebody in that untargeted 1% demographic can't figure out. I'm not saying I don't like it, I'm saying I can't figure out how to use it. Maybe my inability to make heads of tails out of how to use the new Maps is a product of my technical inclination, maybe they have created something that I am too clever to use, but I don't find that very plausible. (specific examples: I can no longer find permalinks (let alone goo[dot]gl shortened permalinks... why was that not the default with old Maps?) and I can no longer figure out how to trigger streetview for any random location (I have only figured out that you can get to it if you click on a business first)).

turing 13y ago

And in my experience Google products have gotten significantly better and more polished in the last few years. Goes to show that their products aren't getting worse, just shifting in focus and priority.

wtvanhest 13y ago
Which products specifically have gotten better?
- ChrisClark 13y ago
  It's all subjective but I love the new Gmail interfaces, Hangouts is much better than Talk and keeps getting better. Google+ photos is so much better than Picasa, I love how I can search for 'blue cars' in my photos and it returns them even though I've never tagged any of them. Android has seen enormous improvements, I love stock 4.3 and Google Now. Chrome's new 'native' apps wrapper-like thing is neat. Even Youtube has improved a little bit, they've got a nice nifty ajax loader bar up top instead of refreshing the entire page when you go to another video. But I guess with a different perspective, someone could argue how they don't like any of those changes. But for me, I love them.
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    The Hangouts experience on Android is an abomination. Its why I disabled (yes, fully disabled) Hangouts and switched to Whatsapp. Its that bad.
    - gabriele 13y ago
      I double that. It's slow, clunky and unnecessarily heavy. That's why most of my contacts have already switched to other platforms. Talk for Android 4, that added support for multiple accounts, was just good enough.
    - Keyframe 13y ago
      At least you have hangouts. </wp>

raldi 13y ago

> Google search has gotten worse and worse lately, forcing me on to other search engines with worse UIs just so that I can get useful results Can you give a few example queries?

ProAm 13y ago
These days I find Google is good for finding things you already know but don't remember. e.g. Number to my favorite Thai restaurant. But has become worse for finding things you don't know. I encounter this a lot when Im trying to find information related to my work but am not knowledgeable enough to narrow my keywords. Mainly programming or server related info....
- raldi 13y ago
  Could you give an example query, and the non-Google search engine that gives better results?
  - iamhungry 13y ago
    Yes raldi, you seem to be really interested and probably believe the Google line. I searched for "sofas" and all I got was ads, ads, ads, ads, ads and then way below some results from companies that advertise on Google. Ads are for sofas but advertisers have an agenda and that's not always best for the users. Is that best for the user or for Google's pockets? I searched on DDG and got one ad.
  - ProAm 13y ago
    Right now I cannot. This is more of a generalization I've found over the past year or so (+/- ~6mos). Typically when it deals with work Im more interested in just finding an answer and move on to the next best resource. I guess this is true when Im at home and the results end up being more spam/ad based, e.g. finding a plumber with a good reputation. Probably not the definitive results driven answer you wanted but this is my experience and what I share with others when asked.

oellegaard 13y ago

+1 Their new Google Apps control panel is impossible to use. It has icons that doesn't correspond to the function and no labels. It's like walking around in a nuclear control panel with no lights on. While I'm moving my e-mail away from Google, the last thing I still use is the search, which still feels light weight and easy to use.

chill1 13y ago
> .. the last thing I still use is the search, which still feels light weight and easy to use. If you haven't, you should really give DuckDuckGo [1] a shot. I used Google's search for the longest time, and finally just forced myself to switch to DDG this summer. It was rough for a while, but either I've gotten used to their search algorithm / results, or the results have gotten better. I hardly ever have to use Google's search to find anything anymore. [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=duckduckgo https://duckduckgo.com/?q=duckduckgo
- Semaphor 13y ago
  For me DDG is sometimes okay. Most of the time though, I want to be in the bubble google places me in. DDG gives me results for someone searching for X. Google gives me the X I want.
  - alex_doom 13y ago
    One thing that kills me is how terrible DDG is at parsing an address. If the street is misspelled at all you get nothing but real estate listings but if it's correct it shows a ghetto gif map from MapQuest :(
    - socillion 13y ago
      If you just want a map, "!map <address>" will send you to google maps with that address.
- epsylon 13y ago
  DDG's search results are terrible for me most of the time. Though DDG as a frontend is quite nice. I use the bang shortcuts all the time. It's actually a better frontend to google's search than google's search itself: I can easily switch between google France results (which emphasize french speaking pages) and normal google results, something that I haven't been able to do in years since google.com/ncr (no country redirect) no longer works when you're logged in with a user account. Overall I love the idea of DDG's bangs. I've found many of them useful and you can infer those you don't know easily (if !a is amazon.com, then !afr is amazon.fr; !hn is very useful as well!)

foobarqux 13y ago

It's a good indication of market power (and therefore business value) when products get worse but users still buy.

pacofvf 13y ago

I hate the new UI for gmail, (mobile and web) is the worst aberration in the history of google UIs. For example for web, now they hide the "from", "cc", "cco" fields, also they moved the reply, reply to all and forward to a drop down menu. The attach, and format buttons now are tiny and moved to the bottom. In the mobile they removed the check-boxes so when you want to select multiple mails you have to keep pressed a mail until it becomes blue and to select the other mails you have to tap where it used to be a check-box and if you mistakenly tap the title of the mail then your selection is lost and it opens that mail in a new view. They also hided the "from", "cc", "cco" fields in the mobile version. I seriously considering to use other clients.

Spittie 13y ago
>In the mobile they removed the check-boxes so when you want to select multiple mails you have to keep pressed a mail until it becomes blue and to select the other mails you have to tap FYI, you can just tap on the email's avatar to select them. Maybe not the simplest interface, but it works well once you get used to it.

lnanek2 13y ago

Agreed. They are removing features that were quite valuable for me, especially in apps like Google Maps, and I absolutely hate the new ads that look like email rows in GMail and don't let me delete them. I can move off their web email client, but Maps is tough to replace. Will have to move to Apple or Nokia or something.

moultano 13y ago

If you have any example bad queries, I'd love to see them to debug. If you have your search history on, you can find them here: https://history.google.com/history/ https://history.google.com/history/

iamhungry 13y ago
If you have any example bad queries Hey Moultano, how come Google's ad clicks increased by 22% this quarter when Adsense was largely flat? Oh, I see. You decided that Google's properties are more "relevant" especially the ads. Nice scam you got going.
- AlexMax 13y ago
  That doesn't look like an example bad query to me.
leephillips 13y ago
This is the exact reply you offered me a few weeks ago when we were complaining about w3schools ranking at the top of Google's results. Ultimately, your "debugging" amounted to explaining that you rank lower-quality results higher because they are more "popular", and therefore, somehow, more useful. I still don't understand the strategy of promoting less reliable, poorer quality information as a way to help the user. But it's easy to understand as a (short term) way to help Google, as these low-quality sites invariably carry Adsense, and the better sites often do not.
- moultano 13y ago
  You didn't really give me a query to debug. I also don't think that's an accurate characterization. (Here's a link to the discussion for those curious. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6426892 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6426892) People like w3schools probably because it has code samples front and center on every page. People find that very useful, even though as a reference MDN might be better in an abstract sense.
  - 13y ago

jamra 13y ago

Shutting down reader will give them stock value. Google plus is now the aggregation of your niche content. Reader was obsoleted by Google plus. This makes it easier to track an individual as well as create more intelligence on ads for that individual's likes. More ads in the email app gives more revenue. Youtube is integrated into Google plus which helps them target ads even more. It makes a lot of sense to me.

tehwebguy 13y ago

Maybe shittier search results cause more clicks on the ads made to look like search results?

sahaj 13y ago

In my opinion, the increase in Google share price really has to do with the Motorola purchase. There is a potential that Motorola phones could some day be just as popular as Samsung or Apple - this a huge add to the share price and Google's revenue and profits. Just take 10% the market cap of Apple and Samsung and add it to Google, you'll see the picture.

epynonymous 13y ago

for the record, it's the 90 per cent use case.