I ask because I’ve been doing a lot of research the last few weeks and Google search has really let me down. I’ve been finding better results on DuckDuckGo and Bing. Is this a recent thing with Google or am I out of the loop? Any other search recommendations?
Edit: In no particular order, some recommended alternatives to Google
SearXNG
Whoogle
Ecosia
Brave
Dogpile
DuckDuckGo
Kagi
Swiss Cows
Qwant
Bing
Google as a whole has felt like it’s built on top of a growing sinkhole. Everything seems fine on the surface, but I look back at the last ~10 years of google and which of their products has not been killed or gotten worse? When did I start to hesitate to try anything new from Google? And now all the sudden in 2023 we’re comparing search engines again?
They’ve stopped the crazy innovation they were known for. They’ve continually eroded core products. Their ‘ecosystem’ barely functions together with bizarre limitations and multiple obvious tie-ins never capitalized on. If anyone was going to build an effective AI, I was sure it’d have been Google first. Why does it feel like they’re last to the starting line?
I’m about a year away from just fully jumping ship from almost every google product. And my family/friends would be 2-3 years beyond that (many of them are fully Apple anyway).
A few years back (or maybe several now) I used to listen to a few of the TWIT network podcasts and the one that talked about google had mentioned a new CFO at the time. They mentioned how they were “tightening the belt” and trying to control google’s massive spending. Looking back, I’ve enjoyed google products/services less and less ever since and I feel like it’s down to profits. They used to spend a ton of money developing very interesting new things and as far as I can tell they just don’t anymore. If they do it’s something like google bard which is only because ChatGPT blew up.
Everything cool that already existed is being filled with Ads (in some form) or abandoned. Are they even still trying to do the self driving car service?
Old google was wild, they even forced ISPs to offer higher speeds in the US to compete with their Google Fiber. Who knows what speeds we’d still be at right now if they never did that.