this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2023
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I think Google search hitched their wagon to Reddit (whether involuntary or not is up for debate) and now it's coming around and biting them in the ass. The "hack" of sticking Reddit or using the tag "site:reddit.com" to the end of whatever your search query was has long been figured out by the masses and I can't help but think the search algorithm has been trained to look there more often by default as a lazy way of doing SEO.
Now that Reddit is rotting from the inside, Google is really having to scramble to do something and fix their SEO spam issues and build trust in their results. What is already a not so great product at the moment in Google Search will soon turn into a bad one if they aren't careful. I think they have coasted for so long as being the default since there was no one else that could challenge them. But with ChatGPT and other LLMs quickly improving, Google has a real danger of losing their biggest cash cow in Seach. Hell if they aren't careful, they could even find their way to non-existence since so much of their revenue comes from serving ads and search listings.
They're really at a turning point and need to be extremely careful in how they move from here. With their recent track record and what they've shown with things like the current Search debacle they're in, Bard, how they've managed Android hardware and software the last decade, etc., I'm not so sure they can do it.
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.