Keep in mind that a lot of issues with search are oblivious to the general public. I don’t think I have ever heard a complaint, outside of tech circles.
I dunno, the thing everyone tells me when I say I'm developing a search engine is "oh thank god, Google is so awful lately". Like I've gotten this reaction from my barber and random taxi drivers.
I do think if it's it's less of a conversation topic outside of tech it's because people outside of tech are less reliant on internet search.
If anything I think people have an exaggeratedly poor view of Google's performance. I think it works pretty good, it's just that some of the ways it fails are confusing and frustrating. There's so much magic it's not entirely obvious why you're getting the results you are getting.
Given that there is an increase in people adding “Reddit” to their search terms, it would seem people aren’t getting the information they are looking for directly from Google searches.
I also see a lot of older family members simply query Siri for 99% of what they are looking for.
How much noise can be introduced before the general public feels they aren’t getting meaningful results? It is just a matter of time, because Google shows no ability to restrain itself from selling out to advertisers.
Google is so entrenched they're the default search engine on 3 major browsers and it even became a verb in the English dictionary. Do you think the average members of the public are gonna start Googling stuff on Bing anytime soon?
I think most non-tech people don't even realize if they are or aren't getting meaningful results. They got conditioned that whatever is on the first results page of google is what's relevant for what they're looking for and if it's not there then it must not exist.
I really don't see any major market shift away from Google search any time soon. Maybe if Apple launched their own could change things up a bit.
This entrenchment is what makes a company like Google fat and lazy and take their users for granted. Behaviour that we are seeing growing year by year. If they stop paying Apple to be the default in Safari (or the government says they can’t, or Apple just decides to kick them in the shins the way they did to Facebook with anti-tracking tech), users would go to whatever else became default. I.e. there is no sacred loyalty earned that would cause anyone to take actions to switch back.
FWIW, literally every non-tech person who I’ve switched to DDG has been happier with the results when I’ve asked them what they thought.
If you want to go with something like that you could remove physical keys and make it a “tablet” keyboard with endless possibilities. That might be interesting
Yeah agreed. This is like a post equivalent to reddit comments. I don't want a new post high on the feed every time some famous person leaves twitter.
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
This pretty squarely does NOT fall under "On-Topic". The only reason it's even being upvoted is because it has "PG" in the title. if it were like, Kanye West, we wouldn't even have it _submitted_, let alone upvoted here.
Democracy demands the interchangeable
part and the worker on the production
line; Thomas Jefferson may have had other
notions but de Tocqueville was our
prophet. Or take American cuisine: it has
never added a sauce to the world's
palate, but our fast-food industry
overruns the planet.
PG left because of censorship. Now he’s back. He’s a smart considered guy so it’s interesting to ask why he went back. We all have to make similar decisions, and one way we do that is to look to leadership.
There are always ethical compromises engaging with the real world, and there are few hard and fast rules to follow.
If PG is reading, I’d love to hear the thinking behind going back.
I get what you are saying, but let’s cut it out with the ethical, free speech and other aspects of the Twitter dilemma. Leaving or staying is the same virtue signaling that most people were fighting against during the last few years.
PG likes to do that as much as any other person. I recall a random tweet telling something like “all smart people I know are moving their wealth from bitcoin to ethereum”. This is crying for attention, unfit for such an accomplished person and this great website.
I'v really had it with Postman. I don't get the priorities. Slow and sometimes confusing and auto-saving the configuration is still impossible(!) and I just keep loosing % of work done every single day. [0]
Glad to see lots of comment with alternatives here.
By the title alone, I first thought it was about something like podcast addiction - listening to someone basically every waking hour. I feel like nobody (me included) can suffer silence anymore and it got even worse with remote work, when you are alone and can listen the whole time.
I recently split up with my girlfriend after 6 years. I'm really looking forward to the upcoming months of silence and time for myself, making it up for me to decide when to break the silence.
Well, I need some fundamental changes in my life - for one, I'll go out and get to know people. That'll be my toughest challenge, as I'd frame myself as an introvert, but also in dire need of social interaction from time to time. It's like I'm constantly swinging from "I need time alone!" to "I need the stage!". I fed that need in the past with my working environment, but I'm now aiming at a 100% remote position, exactly for that reason: Forcing me to get out and meet people.
In terms of long-term romantic relationships - well, I'll try to stay away from them until I consider the above to be "completed", somehow. And after that, I'll hopefully be confident enough to live my own life while in a relationship. This is something I wasn't able to do in the past.
Also, I'll stop worrying about what will happen in three years or whatever. Hopefully, I'll be able to revisit this comment in 2025, just to realize that I'm a happier man.
I'm sure that in a few years when you'll revisit your comment you'll be in a better place, even if not, you'll have different eyes and a different perspective, allowing you to understand much more then what's even visible to you now! There a reason people say time heals, not because it actually heals, but because it takes time to understand and to filter out the non-obvious stuff that may occupy your mind at the moment.
That being said, it's good to remember that no one knows anything and that everyone lives a completely different lifes.
I'd say it depends. "Silence" on a bus/train? No thank you, I prefer a podcast or music. In a shared office? I'd rather have some music. Going for a walk, reading, sports? Give me silence over music/podcasts
