The question in my mind, is whether Google has now gone too far in one particular direction for it to be able to ever recover.
It feels like we need a new kind of search engine with a radically different commercial/operating model to take over, with healthier underlying incentives driving the decision making. I don't see the likes of DDG or Bing as being good enough alternatives - they have many of the same problems and aren't significantly different enough from the "Google model".
Perhaps we need a not-for-profit structure for something as important as search. I know Mozilla and Wikimedia have their own problems, but perhaps something along the lines of how these organisations are structured.
Or, we remove the "indirection" baked into the commercial model and allow people to just pay directly for good quality search. Essentially have a model where the "product" is high quality, unbiased search results, as opposed to the product being the eyeballs of the customers using it. The revenue comes from people who can afford to pay for some premium features, where the search results fundamentally are the same for all, but the subscribers (or donors) get added benefits like bookmark syncing, cloud storage or other value-adds.
But, the subscribers effectively subsidise the otherwise completely free search engine for everyone else. The core search results are the same for everyone, paid or not, it has to be a fair, open and non-discriminatory in that respect.
I don't know whether this works commercially, without being pulled into the cesspit of "paid listings" and advertising, or whether it would have to be a not-for-profit/charity setup which also relies on external donors, but that has its own challenges.
As someone who relies on search as part of my day-to-day job, I would happily pay a monthly subscription for a good, clean search engine. Partly out of a moral conviction that an unbiased search engine with good underlying incentives is an important thing for the world, and partly from a more selfish perspective of wanting to improve the quality of a tool that I use and rely on.
I pay Google nothing currently. I considered signing up to YouTube Premium - which I'd be happy to do, if it didn't rely on a whole extra level of Google tracking then being turned on for me (ie. needing to be constantly signed in to YouTube - which then conveniently signs you in to all other Google properties). It feels like even when you pay for a Google service, you're still "the product" and not "the customer".
I occasionally see new search engine projects listed on HN. I wonder if anyone is working on something that may one day be able to knock Google off the top spot - a position which I believe it no longer deserves.
"What would a paid version of Google Search results look like - where Google can just try to give me the best possible results and not be worried about generating revenue?"
Micheal Google sort of already does this, like tailspin2019 and I said YouTube Premium exists[1][2].
It feels like we need a new kind of search engine with a radically different commercial/operating model to take over, with healthier underlying incentives driving the decision making. I don't see the likes of DDG or Bing as being good enough alternatives - they have many of the same problems and aren't significantly different enough from the "Google model".
Perhaps we need a not-for-profit structure for something as important as search. I know Mozilla and Wikimedia have their own problems, but perhaps something along the lines of how these organisations are structured.
Or, we remove the "indirection" baked into the commercial model and allow people to just pay directly for good quality search. Essentially have a model where the "product" is high quality, unbiased search results, as opposed to the product being the eyeballs of the customers using it. The revenue comes from people who can afford to pay for some premium features, where the search results fundamentally are the same for all, but the subscribers (or donors) get added benefits like bookmark syncing, cloud storage or other value-adds.
But, the subscribers effectively subsidise the otherwise completely free search engine for everyone else. The core search results are the same for everyone, paid or not, it has to be a fair, open and non-discriminatory in that respect.
I don't know whether this works commercially, without being pulled into the cesspit of "paid listings" and advertising, or whether it would have to be a not-for-profit/charity setup which also relies on external donors, but that has its own challenges.
As someone who relies on search as part of my day-to-day job, I would happily pay a monthly subscription for a good, clean search engine. Partly out of a moral conviction that an unbiased search engine with good underlying incentives is an important thing for the world, and partly from a more selfish perspective of wanting to improve the quality of a tool that I use and rely on.
I pay Google nothing currently. I considered signing up to YouTube Premium - which I'd be happy to do, if it didn't rely on a whole extra level of Google tracking then being turned on for me (ie. needing to be constantly signed in to YouTube - which then conveniently signs you in to all other Google properties). It feels like even when you pay for a Google service, you're still "the product" and not "the customer".
I occasionally see new search engine projects listed on HN. I wonder if anyone is working on something that may one day be able to knock Google off the top spot - a position which I believe it no longer deserves.