this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2023
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Google executives acknowledged this month they need to do a better job surfacing user-generated content after the recent Reddit blackouts.

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[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 23 points 1 year ago (10 children)

It's going to be interesting watching the downfall of Google.

Google's got a bit of a problem: THE search engine, THE place people have gone to find information for two generations now...can't find shit. And it's about half its own fault.

I'll put right around half of the blame on "platformization." Your Facebooks and your Twitters are, for the most part, deep web. Google doesn't get to search Facebook; you have to sign into a Facebook account to see much of what's there. Twitter is slightly more open...but not really.

The other half of the problem is Google's own making; the surface web is a twisted, pus-leaking cancerous abomination of its former self, riddled with absolute useless nonsense vomited up by computers for the express purpose of convincing Google to show it to searchers, with no intention of being useful in any way. So the surface web is effectively bullshit and online shopping.

That leaves Reddit. A for-profit platform on the surface web. Even before this whole fiasco, folks were making grumbling noises that they've gotten in the habit of appending "reddit" to google search strings because a. that's where all the actual answers are and b. Reddit's own search feature has never actually worked. So some of Reddit goes private for a few days and suddenly Google doesn't work so well.

So what are we keeping them around for?

[–] mioko@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Are there any quality alternatives to Google? I use DuckDuckGo, but i don't feel that the results are much better - if i remember correctly DDG uses Bing beneath the surface.

[–] Dakta@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Startpage is pretty good.

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