Why would they deliberately hurt their bottom line? They’re a recommendation engine first, search engine second. One could argue the latter implies the former, but definitely not IMO. If it really was a search engine, they wouldn’t be trying so hard to make it useless.
I think of the best lessons of the 21st century in terms of software products is to realize how much the stated intention of a product can be a lie. I wouldn’t trust Netflix’s recommendation engine anymore, the incentives are misaligned with the consumer.
I don’t think that ads are completely bad, there is something to the argument that they help us get better products and services because they let us know about competitors.
Google started out with “don’t be evil” and made a point to separate text link ads in little boxes apart from the search results to keep those results looking legitimate. For a while they had a complex relationship with SEO spammers (who do best when they fill in the gaps of the search coverage) but since they started blending ads with the search results they’ve dissuaded people from investing in SEO-oriented publishing and pushed people into a pay to play model where the instead of spending on content and link building they just pay Google directly.
As a result the search results not only suck (search for a used car and the monopolist car dealer who owns all the new car dealers in town spams you a link to search for new cars) but look illegitimate.
Youtube is still one of the wonders of the web but it is has its own legitimacy problem. A few months back many milbloggers were being sponsored by ‘Established Titles’ which was fraudulently selling square feet of land in Scotland (… and they wren’s even “True Scottman” but were rather based in Hong Kong.). I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I hear that A.I. voice in pre roll ads pushing spam supplements that are probably just loaded with heavy metals.
> I don’t think that ads are completely bad, there is something to the argument that they help us get better products and services because they let us know about competitors.
I could agree with this generally, but from a search engine perspective, doesn't this become very difficult to argue from? That was one of the points I was trying to make, that it is nearly antithetical for an adtech company to build what is supposedly a search engine. Page's and Brin's paper (and this has been quoted countlessly since then due to its irony) states as such
> For example, a search engine could add a small factor to search results from "friendly" companies, and subtract a factor from results from competitors. This type of bias is very difficult to detect but could still have a significant effect on the market. Furthermore, advertising income often provides an incentive to provide poor quality search results. For example, we noticed a major search engine would not return a large airline's homepage when the airline's name was given as a query. It so happened that the airline had placed an expensive ad, linked to the query that was its name. A better search engine would not have required this ad, and possibly resulted in the loss of the revenue from the airline to the search engine. In general, it could be argued from the consumer point of view that the better the search engine is, the fewer advertisements will be needed for the consumer to find what they want. This of course erodes the advertising supported business model of the existing search engines. However, there will always be money from advertisers who want a customer to switch products, or have something that is genuinely new. But we believe the issue of advertising causes enough mixed incentives that it is crucial to have a competitive search engine that is transparent and in the academic realm.
Yep. Google started out running a search engine but now it is something else.
Their “evil” business model is one reason why they have been blindsided by chatbots. To maintain their business model they need a chatbot to answer whatever the highest bidder wants. The answer to “Is global warming a problem?” is “Yes” if Greenpeace spends the most and “No” if ExxonMobil spends the most.
People accept corrupt Google search but insofar as they personalize a chatbot and chatbots have a certain power to seduce, they won’t accept a chatbot does the same, if “search” is replaced by an honest chatbot, huge amounts of revenue will disappear overnight and advertisers will shift their spend elsewhere. Microsoft can jump in with both feet because they don’t make a lot of money with Bing.
First, your search term is actually wrong (to be fair it's Google changing things), it should be lightest thinnest "homemade" laptop, not the current lightest thinnest +homemade laptop (yes, I tested this, there are now homemade included in the search unlike with your original search term). Don't ask me why Google changed this but there you go.
Second, even with this, the results still show prebuilt laptops (the word homemade is in the page, but in the places you don't expect: title of other articles). Maybe there are no homemade thin laptops (link if there's actually one) because I've used Bing and Brave and they also came back with prebuilts.
Edit: oh, jszymborski (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36001836) suggests you to use DIY the next time you've searched as this tends to be the term used in the maker community.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 48.1 ms ] threadI think of the best lessons of the 21st century in terms of software products is to realize how much the stated intention of a product can be a lie. I wouldn’t trust Netflix’s recommendation engine anymore, the incentives are misaligned with the consumer.
Google started out with “don’t be evil” and made a point to separate text link ads in little boxes apart from the search results to keep those results looking legitimate. For a while they had a complex relationship with SEO spammers (who do best when they fill in the gaps of the search coverage) but since they started blending ads with the search results they’ve dissuaded people from investing in SEO-oriented publishing and pushed people into a pay to play model where the instead of spending on content and link building they just pay Google directly.
As a result the search results not only suck (search for a used car and the monopolist car dealer who owns all the new car dealers in town spams you a link to search for new cars) but look illegitimate.
Youtube is still one of the wonders of the web but it is has its own legitimacy problem. A few months back many milbloggers were being sponsored by ‘Established Titles’ which was fraudulently selling square feet of land in Scotland (… and they wren’s even “True Scottman” but were rather based in Hong Kong.). I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I hear that A.I. voice in pre roll ads pushing spam supplements that are probably just loaded with heavy metals.
I could agree with this generally, but from a search engine perspective, doesn't this become very difficult to argue from? That was one of the points I was trying to make, that it is nearly antithetical for an adtech company to build what is supposedly a search engine. Page's and Brin's paper (and this has been quoted countlessly since then due to its irony) states as such
> For example, a search engine could add a small factor to search results from "friendly" companies, and subtract a factor from results from competitors. This type of bias is very difficult to detect but could still have a significant effect on the market. Furthermore, advertising income often provides an incentive to provide poor quality search results. For example, we noticed a major search engine would not return a large airline's homepage when the airline's name was given as a query. It so happened that the airline had placed an expensive ad, linked to the query that was its name. A better search engine would not have required this ad, and possibly resulted in the loss of the revenue from the airline to the search engine. In general, it could be argued from the consumer point of view that the better the search engine is, the fewer advertisements will be needed for the consumer to find what they want. This of course erodes the advertising supported business model of the existing search engines. However, there will always be money from advertisers who want a customer to switch products, or have something that is genuinely new. But we believe the issue of advertising causes enough mixed incentives that it is crucial to have a competitive search engine that is transparent and in the academic realm.
Their “evil” business model is one reason why they have been blindsided by chatbots. To maintain their business model they need a chatbot to answer whatever the highest bidder wants. The answer to “Is global warming a problem?” is “Yes” if Greenpeace spends the most and “No” if ExxonMobil spends the most.
People accept corrupt Google search but insofar as they personalize a chatbot and chatbots have a certain power to seduce, they won’t accept a chatbot does the same, if “search” is replaced by an honest chatbot, huge amounts of revenue will disappear overnight and advertisers will shift their spend elsewhere. Microsoft can jump in with both feet because they don’t make a lot of money with Bing.
"build light thin custom diy laptop" got me slightly more relevant results.
Second, even with this, the results still show prebuilt laptops (the word homemade is in the page, but in the places you don't expect: title of other articles). Maybe there are no homemade thin laptops (link if there's actually one) because I've used Bing and Brave and they also came back with prebuilts.
Edit: oh, jszymborski (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36001836) suggests you to use DIY the next time you've searched as this tends to be the term used in the maker community.
A couple results
https://all3dp.com/2/best-raspberry-pi-laptop-kits-projects/
https://www.inverse.com/input/reviews/mnt-reform-review-your...