this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
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[–] WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world 180 points 2 years ago (3 children)

At some point in the last two years I completely stopped using Google search in browser and just use Google maps to find businesses or ddg for searches. Actual Google search just has too many sponsored or promotional links

[–] WeeSheep@lemmy.world 65 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I just searched local restaurants near me and tried to sort by distance and the first option was 800 miles away, the second was 600 miles away. It's not just Google search getting worse.

[–] Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Google has really been dropping the ball a lot more publicly lately

[–] Daft_ish@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Was over for me when I opt out out of some of their data tracking shit and they started captcha'ing me everytime I browsed there. Like wtf Google what are you anymore? Sounds dumb but them changing the banner every week was the start of the end.

[–] Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Changing the banner for like holidays and anniversaries of things isn't an issue for me IMO

But yeah all their tracking shit that you can't opt out of is a big problem and a big part of why I'm pulling away from Google as much as I can

[–] Daft_ish@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Not saying it was an issue just was a significant change in how they did things.

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 11 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Here's the thing, Google has changed. Over time, they've restructured themselves, initially purposefully, but now they're facing the consequences of that.

Google genuinely does still have amazing programmers and engineers.

The trouble is that their expertise is in crafting systems that harvest personal information; expertise in other areas has been left to rot because there's no point in improving them.

Gmail is already entrenched, as is search, YouTube, maps, android, etc.

They aren't going to attract a significant amount more customers, so their main avenue for continued growth has been to become better at harvesting and processing data.

For a while that was fine, but now that this expertise has been lost, Google can't make good products. They don't have the ability to do so, it's not that they don't want people to use their software and think "wow this is actually pretty great", it's that they genuinely can't do it anymore. Not unless the product you want is a telemetry system, in which case I doubt you'll find anybody that can do such a stellar job.

It's a part of why Google starts then kills so many projects. They want to expand to collect more data, but they don't have the ability to create good services anymore, so it just ends up being an advanced data collector with a sub-par app/website on top of it. The company just isn't structured to make things in any other way.

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 36 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Pretty soon the internet will be almost completely ruined. Within a few years. AI bots will have spammed everything. Searches and web pages will be entirely faked bs. Reddit and Lemmy will have enough ai Bots commenting and pushing agendas/products that no one will have a clue who's a real person. Information that's true will be almost impossible to verify online.

In short, if you think the web has gotten bad now, you ain't seen nothin yet.

[–] ParanoiaComplex@lemmy.world 18 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I agree with the sentiment, but lack of AI has not stopped SEO hacking in the past. Sure it will help them go farther, but there are already tons of garbage websites hacking the top 1-5 results of any search

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 years ago

In the past I remember it made using search engines less rewarding than using web directories, web rings, asking people on forums etc. That was slower, but gave you results (and acquaintances). While using search meant looking through dozens of pages of search results, mainly SEO.

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 years ago

The top results pages, sure. I belive it's going to take over the top 500. Along with flooding places like lemmy and reddit.

[–] clearleaf@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

I think this is part of why Google holds on to youtube despite it not making them money. Without that Google would just be the map and email company. They would completely lose the appearance of "owning" any part of the internet.