Ask HN: Did Bing miss their opportunity to compete with Google?

3 points by hunterloftis 2 years ago | 6 comments

Here's a sentence I never expected to write: For the past few months I've used Bing as my default search engine.

While Bing's standard search results are slightly worse than Google's, both sets of traditional searches have been in a steady decline for years. It's not news on HN that both technical results and product recommendations have become especially awful outside of forums like Reddit.

However, Bing's "chat" feature with ChatGPT 4 was brilliant. I'd developed a habit of "chatting" instead of searching, especially for technical queries. Bing became my go-to instead of Google. They converted me! I thought it was a brilliant move by Microsoft.

Being a Linux + un-googled Chromium user, this was largely thanks to the "Bing Chat for All Browsers" extension. Even if I wanted to use Edge as my daily driver, I couldn't on my Fedora workstation. But Microsoft sent a legal takedown to the developer, leading to this: https://github.com/anaclumos/bing-chat-for-all-browsers/issues/119

So I just switched back to Google today. They have Bard now, with no browser restrictions - I'll try it out instead.

Was I really so far out of Microsoft's target demographic that it's part of their product strategy to lose me? They're clearly aiming at Windows + Edge users. Maybe they're getting so many conversions in that segment that actively churning Linux-centric developers like me isn't a big deal?

outdig 2 years ago |

I wouldn't say missed the opportunity, they definitely tried to, but they botched the opportunity.

Many people have switched off using Bing, not just alternative users. But..

I'm sorry but I prefer not to continue this conversation. I’m still learning so I appreciate your understanding and patience.

darkclouds 2 years ago |

So many tech companies have their strategy to develop and train AI.

Microsoft has Windows+InternetExplorer/Edge and users.

Google has its API's like fonts and users.

Reddit has it sub reddits, moderators and users.

Facebook has its users.

So all these tech companies are still competing, just in their own unique way.

Apple I havent figured out yet.

mikequinlan 2 years ago |

Neither Google nor Bing is a search engine; neither one makes any money from search. They are both advertising sales and placement engines. Google is winning because it started with a larger audience, and is thus more attractive to advertisers.

tssva 2 years ago |

> Even if I wanted to use Edge as my daily driver, I couldn't on my Fedora workstation.

Why not? Edge exists for Linux. Microsoft maintains a repository with rpm packages for Edge and it is also available via a Flatpak.

hunterloftis 2 years ago | |

TIL, thanks!

I still am not willing to migrate browsers in order to use Bing, however.

vmoore 2 years ago |

I like that DuckDuckGo uses Bing as a source and DDG acts as a proxy to Bing. Bing is a huge personal-data grab by Microsoft and all their recent AI is just cruft I will never use, personally.