- cross-posted to:
- microblogmemes@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- microblogmemes@lemmy.world
A magical word.
Source: https://mastodon.online/@gardiner_bryant/114309539375105773
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I’m more surprised that people still use Google search at all after the years of enshittification — first the SEO crap, then “personalized search” bubbles, and finally the “AI” idiocy. Even shouting questions down a wishing well seems more productive at this point.
Not to sound confrontational, but you’re way too focused on your - likely rather advanced - usage.
90% of people search for very simple stuff. They want to know the weather or want to know about that new movie they don’t quite remember the name of. And for that use case, Google is perfectly serviceable. And since people are used to it, for example by it being the default on most platforms, they use it.
A lot of market leaders are objectively a bad choice, but they’re a known brand. Coca cola, McDonald’s, Oracle, etc.
I don’t think you sound confrontational, but neither do I consider my internet searching particularly advanced. A lot of my searches are exactly what you describe, and a lot is trying to find a good research rabbit hole to go down. Call me curious.
I’m just sceptical, primarily of Google Search’s inroads into surveillance monetisation and effective monopoly. For the same reasons I am as critical of the other “market leaders” you mention; I don’t consider the ability to inspire brand loyalty in millions of consumers to sell crap products a quality 🤷
I would honestly consider anyone that uses Lemmy or the Fediverse to be more advanced than the average user.
google is perfectly serviceable
I would go even one step further. For dumb little things like a movie or song you can’t remember, or a factoid to win an argument amongst friends the AI summaries are really helpful.
Yeah no. Just had someone IRL try to use the AI summary to prove something that was blatantly false.
Even more fitting: factoid means something believed to be true, but is false. It’s not a “cute little tidbit of info” like you used it as.
So yeah, AI summaries are full of factoids, you are correct.
I actually did use “factoid” correctly here. According to the Cambridge dictionary the Definition is
an interesting piece of information
And that’s exactly what I use it for. I’m not talking about debating economic policy on national television (but tbf, the ai summary probably does a better job than the talking heads haha) but just stupid little things you “”“debate”“” with your friends.
Some examples Ive used it for recently.
“Were the cars in mad max real cars” and heres the response
Yes, the vehicles in the Mad Max films, especially Fury Road, are based on real, modified cars, rather than CGI or camera effects, with over 150 real cars used in the filming of Fury Road. Here’s a more detailed look
And then it had some details about some of the big cars. And then it linked to articles like this one or this one
Or “how much does a da Vinci (surgery robot) cost?”, and heres it’s answer:
The cost of a da Vinci surgical robot typically ranges from $1.5 million to $2.5 million.
And then had some details of different models of da Vinci machines. But it also linked to this source and this source
And those are just two of the recent searches I have in my search history. For stupid factoids like that it’s really great. For anything more nuanced or complicated than that it falls apart.
And yeah it has incorrect information sometimes. But you know what else gets incorrect information? Me when I drunkenly skim the first article that pops up while my friends drunkenly yell over each other. So id say it washes out.
that’s funny, cus the AI summary for “what is a factoid” told me it’s an incorrectly believed idea. So which is it? Is the AI correct and you’re wrong, or is the AI incorrect and you’re still wrong?
Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc all suffer the same problems. I’d love to hear other alternatives (and I don’t mean alternatives like searx that is little more than lipstick on a pig and proxies search results from said engines).
DuckDuckGo is just Bing wearing a duck hat
And yet it works better than Bing somehow.
It actually doesn’t.
Is Kagi still good? If not, what engine should I use?
Kagi is great if you have the change to spare.
How much does it cost?
10 per month, 14 in a duo deal
Thanks! A bit steep but probably worth it in the end. Do you know if you can set it as the default search in Firefox?
Update: We got the duo pack. You can set it as your default search engine in Firefox on desktop and mobile. The experience is fantastic and I’m never going back. Occasionally I find myself checking the search results on Google to compare and very frequently they are filled with ads, AI generated articles or down right censored. Regarding the last one, I looked up some VPN provider’s name I didn’t know that I found on Lemmy and the results were identical except for one result missing from Google but on the second place in Kagi results: An article about that VPN company’s private keys being compromised. That is something that I would like to know as a consumer about products I search for and it looks like Google is downright being paid to remove negative press.
