this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
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[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 39 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Separate the search engine from anything that stinks of advertising so it can return to what it’s supposed to do: return the most relevant results.

Because even appending udm=14 only gets rid of promoted links and in-page advertising, it does f**k-all to correct manipulated search results.

[–] helenslunch@feddit.nl 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

No business in their right mind is going to just disable advertising altogether. There's no other viable way to support a search engine. Google search has been supported by advertising since day 1.

They can fix search without removing advertising. Preventing them from simply paying off others to be the default could be enough.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world -1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

A decentralized search engine, running on something like what Locutus (neo-Freenet) is intended to be, can work without a business.

[–] helenslunch@feddit.nl 1 points 4 months ago

Okay but no non-business is going to buy Google Search...

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Can you elaborate on the business model of a search engine that has no ads?

[–] dan@upvote.au 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

The only business model that really works is charging people to use it, like Kagi is doing.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

like Kagi is doing

I haven't seen much to suggest Kagi's results are better than Google's. But that's as much a function of time and horsepower as anything.

I would argue that the private model is what's fundamentally wrong with modern search. Nationalize Google and make it a public utility, like any public library or publicly financed research institution. Open up the front end source code and let people apply their own filters and modifications, rather than locking everything down to force feed you sponsored content.

That's the only real way to fix search.

[–] dan@upvote.au 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Nationalize Google and make it a public utility, like any public library or publicly financed research institution.

This would be great. Running a search engine is very expensive though.

The Internet Archive is probably the closest thing we've got to something like this. It's a non-profit but AFAIK they don't get any government funding. They've got the scrapers and could probably work on a search engine project, but I doubt they could afford it in their current state. They're spending a lot of money at the moment due to companies filing lawsuits about Internet Archive archiving their content (and a bunch of content is gone from the archive forever as a result

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

Running a search engine is very expensive though.

The federal government spends about $1.3B a year on advertising and another $37.5B on data collection, with Google being a major recipient of both budgets. Nationalization would save a small fortune.

And for the economic tailwinds that efficient Internet research provides, I'm willing to bet we'd see significant economic benefits that eclipse the base cost, not unlike with Amtrak or the USPS.

The Internet Archive is probably the closest thing we’ve got to something like this.

Them and Wikipedia, definitely. Both make for excellent models of non-profit free-at-point-of-use information services.

[–] ARg94@lemmy.packitsolutions.net -3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, let's see how much worse corrupt bureaucrats can make this already rotten turd of a product!

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world -1 points 4 months ago

Not trusting the EPA because Exxon has done such an awful job.

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

I get the feeling a lot of people would complain about Google search doing that too.

[–] alphabethunter@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Let's not make them a business. Search Engines are fundamental core services for the modern globalized and connected world. It's just like your post-office service. Make it an internationally owned and funded non-profit organization with open-source and the goal of enabling the unrestricted sharing of knowledge over the internet.

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

What does the creation of a multi-national state owned search engine have to do with Google? I presume nations have the resources to do that all on their own.

What would you suggest the Google search engine be allowed to do to profit as a business?

[–] alphabethunter@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

There's no suggestion. There is currently no way a search engine can be a viable modern business model and a good tool at the same time. It could potentially be a good business model and a decent tool even with ads, but only in a world where we accept that things can't grow forever.

[–] dan@upvote.au 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

even appending udm=14

FYI all this is doing is going to the "Web" tab of the results. You can just click it instead of modifying the URL.

I guess where it'd be useful is modifying the search URL in your browser so that searches always add udm=14 by default.

[–] Moah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

And chrome from everything else too

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com -1 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Chrome doesn't make any money. How is it supposed to support itself as a separate company?

[–] PlasticExistence@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It doesn't have to be free. People used to pay for licensed software with money instead of their private data. We can do that again, or there's still open source options like Firefox and it's derivatives.

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

It does have to be free. It's open source software. If they tried to charge money for Chrome, people would just use Chromium or one of the other browsers based on it.

[–] PlasticExistence@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Chromium is open source. Chrome is not. Open source also doesn't mean that you can't charge for the compiled binaries. But that isn't my point. My point is that the reason it's free is that you're actually paying for it through the value of Google tracking and storing everything you do, but as a society have don't have to structure services this way.

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 1 points 4 months ago

Chrome and Chromium are 99.9% the same. Source: I used to be a Chrome developer at Google.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

Chrome doesn’t make any money.

It defaults you to the Google web suite, where Google makes money on ads. And it harvests your data, which it can then sell to ad agencies as a tool to optimize targeted ad sales.