Google truly fucking sucks. Their search has become completely unusable. It probably seems fine for the same idiots that log on to Facebook 10x a day though so probably sustainable.
Enjoy:
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I guess I’m an idiot. Haven’t noticed any changes in what I use it for. 
Am I supposed to be using Bing now?
There is not a better general search engine and there probably never will be.
I’m not sure what’s coming to replace Google, and they’re integrating AI with search now. I have to look at their trends in search traffic the last few years, but they also stand to grow YT Shorts and YT TV. I also think they’re an underrated AI play.
The product is definitely getting worse and that’s bad, but they’ve had consistent earnings growth, they’ve got low debt, decent shareholder returns, and enough reasons to think there’s more upside to keep me holding.
It’s gotten to the point when I need information about anything I’m considering spending money on I just go to Reddit. Google is all paid bullshit. And I would not be surprised if products are priced differently based on their data mining thru google search.
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But most people who do that Google the keyword and Reddit.
It really is. For like simple fucking things too. I can’t believe I”m back to using Microsoft’s search engine.
Reddit’s interface is fucking awful. You get a responsive thread but staying in the thread instead of falling into a million ads and sponsored bullshit that is completely irrelevant is impossible.
It’s probably just habit but Google seems fine to me? Professionally I use Google scholar which works great for me. Personally if I’m googling it’s usually to get to the website of a business I already have in mind.
What are you all trying to search for in search engines?
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For example, best (insert furniture product) yields literally 10 pages of paid bullshit.
I just searched best baby crib and best baby monitor and get 2-3 sponsored ads at top but immediately below that are legitimate articles and Reddit is always #3/4 and it seems like Google engine searches Reddit better than Reddit itself does?
Obviously annoying to have to scroll past the first 2 hits but is it really that big of a detriment to the overall effectiveness?
This is a great story. Many don’t remember Yahoo search was big time once. What to do with the man in charge of Yahoo search when it went from big to irrelevant? Put him in charge of Google search, of course. Replacing an actual expert. He’s been in charge for 5 years and the results are quite noticeable – and intentional! He made search worse on purpose.
These clowns think taking consumer surplus from huge to zero is a big win. It is until it isn’t. Then you’re Boeing.
Following up on this because thought was amusing. If you type best baby crib in Google it finds you Reddit discussions of baby cribs.
But if you type it straight into Reddit you get cats, cartoon discussions and shitposting.
Well actually Reddit, of which I am a share holder, is not a search engine.
On top of the bullshit ads, they also do that thing now where they attempt to scrape their top hits to give you relevant info straight on the search page. By “now” I mean they made that change years ago but there was a time that feature didn’t exist. I assume it’s there to keep you from clicking away from Google. The problem is it’s terrible at giving you the right info. Like I often Google “can dogs eat xx” and one time I got a little summary thing that said yes but when I clicked through to the page for the full story it was like “this one part of whatever thing is fine but if dogs eat the actual part that gets processed into human food they will die.”
Also for some reason I find it not uncommon to search for a term and get a promising looking link but when I control+F the literal thing I searched for the page is like “no match found.”
Also even when searching for a commercial product that I intend to buy I might be looking for something very specific because there are compatibility restrictions and 90%+ of the results are similar items that are not compatible.
I literally can’t think of a single use where I’ve found current Google to be superior to 2015 Google.
Once again, Google wants to give me horrible advice, in direct contradiction to the website it’s quoting. It is so, so bad at this.
I wouldn’t use the word “contagious” there
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They should really keep raising rates. It took rates a lot higher than they are right now to tame inflation in the 80’s.