A Google Replacement Will Not Look Like Google

A Google Replacement Will Not Look Like Google(re-search.xyz)

17 points by researchers 4 years ago | 4 comments

Below is a comment I posted a while ago [0]. I think the article is right in that google style search is not what will replace google, because we don't need a search engine anymore, and we use google as a natural language web portal to get at stuff we already know, not for discovery. We need a new model that's simultaneously lets us access valuable stuff while incentivizing the creation and organization of valuable stuff

""" I've realized my searching is basically optimized for google and the web that has grown up around it. Also, in 1998 I wasn't as aware of what was out there as I am now. It's pretty rare (even if its possible) that I do a search and come across a completely new site that I haven't heard of before, for anything nontrivial. That was different when search began.

Google is now almost a convenience. If I have a coding question, I search for "turn list of tensors into tensor" or whatever but I'm really looking for SO or the pytorch documentation, and I'll ignore the geeksforgeeks and other seo spam that finds it's way it. It's almost like google is a statistical "portal" page, like Yahoo or one of those old cluttered sites were, that lets me quickly get through the menus by just searching. That's different from a blank slate search like we might have done 25 years ago.

I think what's really lacking now is uncorrupted search for anything that can be monetized. Like I tried to search for a frying pan once on google and it was unusable. I'm not sure any better search engine can fix that, that's why everyone appends "reddit" to queries they are looking for a real opinion on, again, because they are optimizing for the current state of the web.

Anyway, all that to say I think there are a lot of problems with (google dominated) search, but they are basically reflected in the current web overall, so just a better search engine, outside of stripping out the ads, can only do so much. Real improved search efforts need to somehow change the content that's out there at the same time as they improve they experience, and let us know how to, in a simple way, get the most out of it. I think google has a much deeper moat than most people realize """ [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=version_five&next=30...

thfuran 4 years ago | |

>Also, in 1998 I wasn't as aware of what was out there as I am now. It's pretty rare (even if its possible) that I do a search and come across a completely new site that I haven't heard of before, for anything nontrivial. That was different when search began.

That doesn't convincingly demonstrate that you're now more aware of what's out there, just that you're more aware of the things that Google prioritizes as results.

researchers 4 years ago | |

> Real improved search efforts need to somehow change the content that's out there at the same time as they improve they experience

Yes, this is our key takeaway too. However, that doesn't translate to "google has a much deeper moat than most people realize". The current state of search doesn't engender much loyalty. While it would take a lot to ditch Google entirely, it wouldn't take much to start eating away at some small class of queries.

landon32 4 years ago |

One interesting idea that I don't see talked about enough is the idea of a "Publicly Owned" search engine. Search engines are utilities with strong "successful to the successful" feedback loops similar to power/water/gas companies. Maybe a government should fund the creation of a really good search engine as a benefit to the public.