• anothermember@feddit.ukEnglish
    42·
    1 month ago

    I still remember when Google launched, the uncluttered homepage was the real differentiator, other search engines, especially AltaVista, were just as good at the time, but they would load their homepage with as much extra stuff as they could think of to attract people. Then Google came along with a quirky name (for the time) and a uniquely minimalist look that broke all the established rules, it wasn’t necessarily better search at that point but it really looked different. Different times of course, a search engine was just another website, no different to your own personal page.

    • GenosseFlosse@feddit.org
      13·
      1 month ago

      As far as I remember Alta Vista was ok at the beginning, but soon people figured out that you can get to the top result if you just repeat your top keywords multiple times in the meta Keywords tag. Another trick was to just add “free, mp3, sex” to each pages meta keywords to get more traffic. At this point Google was better, and also would load much faster on dialup than the image heavy sites like yahoo or Alta Vista.

    • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
      4·
      1 month ago

      I liked dogpile back in the late 90s because it would aggregate from several sources and wasn’t terribly cluttered comparatively. I think I swapped to Google around 2000ish because it was so minimalist.

    • bilbaobun@lemmy.ml
      2·
      1 month ago

      I’d argue ddg is good and they area product of capatalism. Nobody is forcing you to use google

        • bilbaobun@lemmy.ml
          22·
          1 month ago

          I use it and I have no problems at all. Would say it’s on the same level, but the ai searches are actual relevant and tasteful unlike google

          • bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works
            11·
            1 month ago

            Anyone using ai searches is automatically un trustable to me. Ive never once needed it and ive corrected many stupid people asking ai things and suddenly thinking they are smart on a subject that I’m actually knowledgeable in because I actually read and use my brain.

            Kagi is maybe one aspect of capitalism that works. I pay, I get good product. I know it has a couple bad things (possible Russian ties) but yeah

  • PowerCrazy@lemmy.mlEnglish
    22·
    1 month ago

    If google were just a search engine still, there wouldn’t be a problem. But they are much much more now. Plus they suck at doing the thing they were supposed to do, i.e. searching.

    • osanna@lemmy.vgEnglish
      18·
      1 month ago

      I read something that said they are PURPOSELY bad at search now because if users have to click multiple pages, they see more ads. Like, how evil do you have to be to purposely corrupt your main thing just to sell more ads.

      • 4am@lemmy.zip
        8·
        1 month ago

        Search never made them money. Ads do. Ads are their thing.

        We need to figure out a way to host content on the web that is just part of the network, without needing servers or big tech companies.

        It’s not really possible I know but we need to anyway.

        • osanna@lemmy.vgEnglish
          3·
          1 month ago

          Yup, I know. They are, first and foremost, an advertising company. If they can integrate advertising into their products, you can bet money on them doing so. Which is all the reason i need to never use google again.

  • Tattorack@lemmy.world
    17·
    1 month ago

    I dunno. Milk can age into cheese if done right.

    I’d say it aged like a badly discarded biohazard container.

        • Mwa@thelemmy.clubEnglish
          3·
          1 month ago

          i also want to mention Donation based/ads(if not too intrusive) are also fine ig.
          and sometimes(depends on country) your only option is monthly subscription (whatever its rent or internet price) you can find for sale buts its like in the millions and i think internet price is monthly only.
          but yeah i dislike monthly subscription as much as you(and i agree with you)
          i could use a Freemium service that has a monthly subscription too,but i wont buy the subscription. (i may abuse free trials kek)
          but obviously i prefer perpetual license the most.

      • SanicHegehog@lemmy.world
        2·
        1 month ago

        I’m not against a subscription for something like this. Kagi has ongoing server costs, I think it’s only fair that users pay on an ongoing basis.

        As opposed to, say, Office where the software can be more or less “finished” and I don’t need or want updates.

    • Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      1 month ago

      I’m really happy with Kagi but I’m scared its price might go up and I’d want them to really not depend on the GAFAM. I think their results or something is still coming out of these bad companies…

  • BigDiction@lemmy.world
    8·
    1 month ago

    The 2007 acquisition of Doubleclick is the watershed moment that converted Google from a competitor into a monopoly of the Internet ecosystem.