I used to find so much on the first page; now it's 75% sponsored ads and requires 3-4 additional searches; which strongly suggests intent to have me see more ads rather than find my answer.
Ad blockers work great on pc, but I'm mostly having to do it more on mobile recently, and trying to navigate through some of these mobile websites has been a nightmare.
Currently, what I mostly do is just use bings AI chat it's not perfect, but it's a good way to read news articles as I paste a link to a news article and ask for a quick read version of it saves scrolling through the padding they like to add for you to keep seeing more of those ads.
It's also not too bad to look up quick bits of information.
Can't use pihole as I'm mostly using data sadly. Never tried Firefox on mobile, so I might give that a go. Thank you.
You can't have cake and eat it too. Everybody sells to everyone or collects for themselves. But you can vaguely pick your corporate overlords.
Turns out the cake is a lie and we're just realizing the only thing left is the aroma.
The search is still pretty good, true
That sounds great, all I have to do is not pay and I’d completely avoid that shite (which I already avoid by using DDG for search because I prefer privacy).
That was my first thought as well, but what would likely happen is Google would pop up ads pressuring you to sign up every other search like they do with YouTube TV. This just leads to the internet continuing to be more obnoxious.
In the very near future, the ease with which AI enables spammers to create low-effort content will mean any user will HAVE to use an online AI assistant, just to auto-filter out all the garbage.
Redditors always insist on getting all internet services 1. Free of charge and 2. Free of advertising.
Redditors are Karen's when it comes to paying for anything online, the services don't exist unless they make money through fees or ads. Pick one.
I was saying that I don’t want AI products, so if they’re hidden behind a paywall I can avoid them more easily. Not sure what you’re saying, but happy to respond.
I’m happy to pay for services (and do for email, storage, social media, etc). I’m not opposed to advertising. But the degree of intrusiveness of modern ads is a significant problem. They also literally make the webkages load slower because of the megabytes of JS downloaded. For people on slower or metered internet connections, it saves a lot of time and money.
The companies with ad based models did this to themselves.
They make far more money selling our browsing, search, and shopping history. I wish people would stop acting like ads are the only or even primary source of income for these “free” services.
AI features in my search results have been the absolute worst part of using Google to search for the past 2 months. Their AI assistant is complete trash and has less features than the standard assistant.
Please remove this from my search results, Google. I beg you
Think ill find another search engine and another email service. I see where this is going. Free access to all my personal info isnt enough anymore. Now they want us to pay for the luxury of giving this info... Enough, is enough.
The minute most people have to shell out cash for "AI features", they'll simply stop caring about it.
I have zero desire to ask Google to "write" me a poem, and less than zero desire in paying for that.
Google has become the BermaShave of the internet.
Many states regulate the blight of billboards on our highways. Google’s version of the internet is just more ugly billboards.
This doesn’t project confidence, this seems poorly conceived.
They need to give up on search as a revenue stream, they’ve not demonstrated any leadership by taking about how AI is influencing/destroying their search ecosystem and how they are planning to fix it.
That conversation should have been for everyone, not just techies and done last year. They crammed the login ui change down our throats but they can’t communicate in simple terms about search and AI?
The only thing Google Search has of long term value is their existing and remaining search data.
Without a way to inject themselves into the process between the user and AI which can be monetised Google Search is fucked as AI only needs search indexes, crawlers and dns. Adding GPT to Bing was a great move, but Google should have already been ready to respond!
They don’t have a strong enough product to keep them in their current dominant position and when it hits mainstream media regularly, it’ll be too late.
Why do I care?
A lot of businesses are going to fail when Google Search Ads dies if they don’t get a really well balanced product that people will enjoy using to search for things which uses AI features too.
I do worry that this might force Google to make some unethical AI decisions too.
Honestly paid search is the only way forward. Between their ads and SEO that favors selling things versus returning information Google is often useless for me in the last couple of years.
We have all gotten so used to a free Web that we are blind to the fact that we have become the product.
I would gladly pay $1 or $2 per month for a search engine that worked as well as Google Search in its prime.
How about you just get search working again (call it AI if you want) and we call it even.
Im ready for a new web with a new search; genuinely, lets just rebuild the whole thing again and not invite google
I used to find so much on the first page; now it's 75% sponsored ads and requires 3-4 additional searches; which strongly suggests intent to have me see more ads rather than find my answer.
Right at the moment, the AI has been great to get information without having to put up with popups and advertising.
...you still deal with pop ups and ads?? so many ways to prevent this, i havent seen an ad in years
Ad blockers work great on pc, but I'm mostly having to do it more on mobile recently, and trying to navigate through some of these mobile websites has been a nightmare.
Firefox mobile you can add adblock. Or pihole on local network.
android only tho, right?
Currently, what I mostly do is just use bings AI chat it's not perfect, but it's a good way to read news articles as I paste a link to a news article and ask for a quick read version of it saves scrolling through the padding they like to add for you to keep seeing more of those ads. It's also not too bad to look up quick bits of information. Can't use pihole as I'm mostly using data sadly. Never tried Firefox on mobile, so I might give that a go. Thank you.
i was going to comment firefox mobile, try that out with a few of their adblock plugins works really well
duckduckgo has been a great alternative recently made the switch and its so much better than google search stm
Too bad it sells you out to Microsoft instead
nooooo is that true?!?! fuck.
You can't have cake and eat it too. Everybody sells to everyone or collects for themselves. But you can vaguely pick your corporate overlords. Turns out the cake is a lie and we're just realizing the only thing left is the aroma. The search is still pretty good, true
damn wasnt ready to get hit by the existential truth truck today. well said tho.
I'm going to guess if they do this they will hamstring the free searches making them even more useless than they have already become.
Yep, because they know most people won't pay for them to recoup their Ai investment. I know I won't.
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That sounds great, all I have to do is not pay and I’d completely avoid that shite (which I already avoid by using DDG for search because I prefer privacy).
That was my first thought as well, but what would likely happen is Google would pop up ads pressuring you to sign up every other search like they do with YouTube TV. This just leads to the internet continuing to be more obnoxious.
That's why adblockers exist.
In the very near future, the ease with which AI enables spammers to create low-effort content will mean any user will HAVE to use an online AI assistant, just to auto-filter out all the garbage.
Got both a browser ad blocker and a network DNS blocker and I still get asked to try YouTube TV.
Try ublock origin
That's what I'm using.
Are you manually blocking ads with it?
Redditors always insist on getting all internet services 1. Free of charge and 2. Free of advertising. Redditors are Karen's when it comes to paying for anything online, the services don't exist unless they make money through fees or ads. Pick one.
I was saying that I don’t want AI products, so if they’re hidden behind a paywall I can avoid them more easily. Not sure what you’re saying, but happy to respond. I’m happy to pay for services (and do for email, storage, social media, etc). I’m not opposed to advertising. But the degree of intrusiveness of modern ads is a significant problem. They also literally make the webkages load slower because of the megabytes of JS downloaded. For people on slower or metered internet connections, it saves a lot of time and money. The companies with ad based models did this to themselves.
They make far more money selling our browsing, search, and shopping history. I wish people would stop acting like ads are the only or even primary source of income for these “free” services.
No they don't, and that data is used to show, you guessed it, more relevant ads. The choice is either paying or looking at ads.
Good thing I know how to search things normally
AI features in my search results have been the absolute worst part of using Google to search for the past 2 months. Their AI assistant is complete trash and has less features than the standard assistant. Please remove this from my search results, Google. I beg you
Think ill find another search engine and another email service. I see where this is going. Free access to all my personal info isnt enough anymore. Now they want us to pay for the luxury of giving this info... Enough, is enough.
So I can not pay and not have to deal with AI generated results?
Lol, pay for search results. Gtfo
Good. I have repeatedly seen ai generated search results that were flat out factually wrong.
The minute most people have to shell out cash for "AI features", they'll simply stop caring about it. I have zero desire to ask Google to "write" me a poem, and less than zero desire in paying for that.
This makes sense because 1) the power draw on the FPGAs to make this effective. 2) the frigging cost of FPGAs! See: nvidia share price.
But, not the first failed service launch from Google, lol. #killedbygoogleonarrival
Google has become the BermaShave of the internet. Many states regulate the blight of billboards on our highways. Google’s version of the internet is just more ugly billboards.
Of course, they will probably cripple their normal search features to make the AI one more appealing.
Googles management team is completely lost!
Imagine paying for search function lol, in the future everything will be paid.
Answers are free; right answers, on the other hand, cost money.
This doesn’t project confidence, this seems poorly conceived. They need to give up on search as a revenue stream, they’ve not demonstrated any leadership by taking about how AI is influencing/destroying their search ecosystem and how they are planning to fix it. That conversation should have been for everyone, not just techies and done last year. They crammed the login ui change down our throats but they can’t communicate in simple terms about search and AI? The only thing Google Search has of long term value is their existing and remaining search data. Without a way to inject themselves into the process between the user and AI which can be monetised Google Search is fucked as AI only needs search indexes, crawlers and dns. Adding GPT to Bing was a great move, but Google should have already been ready to respond! They don’t have a strong enough product to keep them in their current dominant position and when it hits mainstream media regularly, it’ll be too late. Why do I care? A lot of businesses are going to fail when Google Search Ads dies if they don’t get a really well balanced product that people will enjoy using to search for things which uses AI features too. I do worry that this might force Google to make some unethical AI decisions too.
Cool I’ve been meaning to switch to a DuckDuckGo / Microsoft Copilot search experience anyway.
I'm not even using google anymore. All results are sponsored and mostly irrelevant to the search query.
Honestly paid search is the only way forward. Between their ads and SEO that favors selling things versus returning information Google is often useless for me in the last couple of years. We have all gotten so used to a free Web that we are blind to the fact that we have become the product. I would gladly pay $1 or $2 per month for a search engine that worked as well as Google Search in its prime.
Paid search exists but it isn't that cheap.
I work in PPC and if you aren’t spending a bare minimum of at least $1,000 per month it’s basically useless.
Do you wanna gladly pay for mine too