cross-posted from: https://awful.systems/post/2178630
Google results are actually already pretty terrible. They just have tremendous inertia.
I stopped using them months ago. I only notice when I’m looking for places (e.g., restaurants, barbers).
I’m not unhappy but may still shop around.
We all keep saying this but can anybody point me to which one is better?
I invariably end up having to go back to them because the other search engines all have their own problems.
The issue is the internet is polluted with SEO and all the useful things that used to be spread out are now condensed onto places like Reddit, or places that aren’t even being indexed.
Supposedly there’s a paid one that is good. I haven’t tried. The thing is Google is completely enshittified. They don’t have to care about you or the sites you search. So my theory is Bing is better because they are hungrier and anything that takes away market share from Google is good—but I’m fully aware that Microsoft was just as shitty as Google and will be again if they get back on top.
Everything else I know of is either just an alternate front end for one of them or an aggregator of both. So you’re right, there’s precious little alternative to Google. But it’s almost bad enough I’m ready for the return of web rings of good sites vouching for each other.
Part 5 is where I don’t see this actually going.
Look at twitter. Now look at mastodon. Tell me which one is more shitty. Now tell me which one has something like 85% of the market, and which one most people haven’t heard of.
Just because something it better, doesn’t mean people use it. You can fit all of Lemmy in the world in one of the larger NBA size arenas. You can’t even fit twitters total user base into some smaller CITIES.
He’s already owned it for nearly two years. I’d definitely take the over on that bet. I just don’t see what Twitter could possibly do that they haven’t done already to kill it?
Let’s DuckDuckGOOOOOOO!
For now.
DDG gets search results from Bing, owned by Microsoft. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the later did the same as Google did.
That’s technically true, but it’s as misleading as saying they get their search results from Yandex. Their results are aggregated from several search engines, not just Bing. They also have their own web crawler, DuckDuckBot, which absolutely respects RobotRules.
Edit: I’m told my information is out of date. No more Yandex because of Uncle Sam. Yahoo is just Bing now, so that index doesn’t count anymore. The bulk of the rest of their sources are largely inconsequential specialized search engines. Their sources page states that they “largely source from Bing”.
Where is your evidence for that? It used to be Bing and Yandex, but now it’s just Bing. They use other non search engine APIs and do a small amount of crawling AFAIK. Details of who uses what here: https://seirdy.one/posts/2021/03/10/search-engines-with-own-indexes/
There’s an article from this spring’s 2600 magazine that claims it’s all Bing results. I haven’t dug through their Python code and I’m definitely no expert anyway, but I’d also prefer not to post an article from a small independent magazine like that to let the people on Lemmy who do know more than me take a look.
We’re at a point where not only should the Internet be classified as a utility, so should Search.
Oh look, more anticompetitive shenanigans.
Break Google up. Bring the full force of antitrust down on them.
Anything else is an unmitigated disaster waiting to happen.
Can someone explain why the fuck Google is pushing this so hard? Generative AI is not a general intelligence, and useless for concrete facts. Google has already demonstrated how shitty it is for information, and the people with the knowledge to work on the project have to know this.
So why the fuck are they all full steam ahead on something that will always be useless for them?
AI is hype.
They’ve recently signed a deal with Reddit for AI parsable data. Reddit reciprocated by allowing Google to be the only indexable search engine.
Google now thinks it can do the same to literally everyone else.
Googling is pretty damn mainstream.
Don’t give Google your data, then don’t be included in googles search results. It’s like a flip of their previous trade with reddit, except it’s not a trade. It’s extortion.
Reddit never gave Google traffic. They gave them content and data.
And Google thinks it can withdraw traffic from other sites unless they get data in return.
Google is a monopoly.
Literally extortion
