Google has worried for years that Apple would one day expand its internet search technology, and has been working on ways to prevent that from happening.
Anyone who never got a chance to use Google Now back in the day really missed out! One of Google’s most useful products to date. It would provide you with the most useful/timely information before you even knew you needed it. Word is, it was so useful that people stopped needing to actively use Google’s services to get the info they needed so they scrapped it. Bastards.
I remember when you could find what you were looking for by googling it. Those were good days. Seriously though, google search, google maps and many other google products simply do not work anymore. They deliberately removed functionality for short term monetary gain and have lost the dominance they once had simply due to their products not working the way they did 10 years ago.
They have no interest in making search better. When 2 out of every 3 searches go through your platform either way, good results lead to fewer page loads which results in lost ad revenue. How are they going to afford to pay Apple $18 billion/year if everyone is getting the info they need?
Google is still the best in my experience, at least for stuff I search for. As long as they’re just slightly better what reason do they have to improve?
Yeah this is the issue. I’ve been trying DDG and while it’s got less bloat it’s either the same as Google or less accurate 99% of the time. There are times I was searching for something I had found before and had to switch back to Google because it wasn’t coming up in DDG
Trying to get back to Google after a few years on DDG then Qwant felt really off. Kagi was the real deal for me but it is still to expensive for the average consumer 😕
$5 is too expensive? People have $1,200 phones on financing, buy $5 coffee on the way to work, still drive gasoline vehicles when fuel is $4-6 (in the states) to go ~20 miles, pay $16 for Netflix… like whut? Shit, I’m disabled and living off social security and I still found room in my budget for $5.
As a very aware consumer I think it’s fair, but a larger audience would be hard to convince :
Internet is basically perceived as free for most people, in particular search engine is considered as one of the most obvious features as it is the entry point
Google is still perceived as “the quality search engine” and others as the shitty ones that would trick you into using them during the 2000’s via intrusive browser extensions. Recent popular alternatives always an argument other than the quality : privacy, charity, sovereignty, …
Most people can’t make the difference between “Search Engine” and “Web Browser”. I would say it is because of Google because Google Chrome successfully marked itself as “Google”. This last one is scary to me, even people very confortable with computers can’t make the difference and are not aware that a search engine is just a website and that it is not tied to a browser.
To convince someone to use Kagi, you must change their mind about these three points, and then convince them to spend 60$/year for it.
Yeah I’m talking about the kind of people who are here, on Lemmy - not the grandma that uses Facebook as ‘the internet search’. The people who are aware of current trends and events in tech. I’ve given up trying to educate people who don’t give two shits - life is too damn short.
My last experiences with Google were non-trivial privacy policy consent request popups that made me leave.
The one before was having to clean up my mother’s laptop after she installed a popular FOSS program from a search result ad infested with ad and malware.
“Make google search suck less” is something that they didn’t consider.
Defeat the competition by making a good product yourself?? I don’t think so! Stifling innovation is the only way to succeed!
It’s the best reason to have a monopoly, other than money.
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Anyone who never got a chance to use Google Now back in the day really missed out! One of Google’s most useful products to date. It would provide you with the most useful/timely information before you even knew you needed it. Word is, it was so useful that people stopped needing to actively use Google’s services to get the info they needed so they scrapped it. Bastards.
Yes, I remember that! I recall thinking, imagine how good this will get in the future. Sadly it didn’t.
I remember when you could find what you were looking for by googling it. Those were good days. Seriously though, google search, google maps and many other google products simply do not work anymore. They deliberately removed functionality for short term monetary gain and have lost the dominance they once had simply due to their products not working the way they did 10 years ago.
They have no interest in making search better. When 2 out of every 3 searches go through your platform either way, good results lead to fewer page loads which results in lost ad revenue. How are they going to afford to pay Apple $18 billion/year if everyone is getting the info they need?
Google is still the best in my experience, at least for stuff I search for. As long as they’re just slightly better what reason do they have to improve?
Yeah this is the issue. I’ve been trying DDG and while it’s got less bloat it’s either the same as Google or less accurate 99% of the time. There are times I was searching for something I had found before and had to switch back to Google because it wasn’t coming up in DDG
Trying to get back to Google after a few years on DDG then Qwant felt really off. Kagi was the real deal for me but it is still to expensive for the average consumer 😕
My first few experiences with Kagi were good, on par with Google, but my latest weren’t. Especially in my local language.
$5 is too expensive? People have $1,200 phones on financing, buy $5 coffee on the way to work, still drive gasoline vehicles when fuel is $4-6 (in the states) to go ~20 miles, pay $16 for Netflix… like whut? Shit, I’m disabled and living off social security and I still found room in my budget for $5.
As a very aware consumer I think it’s fair, but a larger audience would be hard to convince :
To convince someone to use Kagi, you must change their mind about these three points, and then convince them to spend 60$/year for it.
Yeah I’m talking about the kind of people who are here, on Lemmy - not the grandma that uses Facebook as ‘the internet search’. The people who are aware of current trends and events in tech. I’ve given up trying to educate people who don’t give two shits - life is too damn short.
My last experiences with Google were non-trivial privacy policy consent request popups that made me leave.
The one before was having to clean up my mother’s laptop after she installed a popular FOSS program from a search result ad infested with ad and malware.
Yeah there was just an article on ars about malware from an ad pretending to be keepass.
https://arstechnica.com/security/2023/10/google-hosted-malvertising-leads-to-fake-keepass-site-that-looks-genuine/