They just chose the money over the usable of Google search. Google used Reddit as a crutch but now that is stale or going away (pending reddit getting paid by AI companies for their data). So Google is either going to have to change how search works which will endanger their bottom line from search and totally change how search engine optimization and thousands of websites work which seems unlikely. Or find a way to keep search relevant.
Does Google still receive a substantial chunk of their income from actual use of their search engine?
Yes 162 billion+ from money they make off search. It would take some more math but you’d have to figure out the indirect income as well of people using Google services because of search.
Search is still an incredibly powerful and prolific part of Google’s business despite what they make focus on from the outside. Which is why it boggles my mind that they just let it go absolutely to shit. But on the other hand they make 162 billion a year from it so there’s the reason there’s 162 billion of them.
So I guess nothing changes even if Reddit goes dark on the search ability front of this Google probably just keeps limping along it’s not like anyone out there is competing. Bing maybe in the future there’s still some innovation that needs to happen there and they need to get the default power somehow. Duck duck go is the way but that’s still using Google search just with out as many tracking features built-in.
