Google swears everything is fine. A new study—and many people's lived experience—says different.

For the past few years, a growing number of users, analysts, and experts raised alarms about a truth that feels obvious to a lot of people who surf around in web browsers: the quality of Google results is in serious decline. Google disagrees.

  • Fizz@lemmy.nz
    16·
    5 months ago

    Google search results suck and I’ve actually heard regular people mention it. They just either don’t know how to switch search engines or they think Bing search sucks.

    • blargerer@kbin.social
      12·
      5 months ago

      Bing and Bing based searches have also gotten worse. The study in question actually says they preform worse than google. Its all Goodhart’s law in action.

    • hannes3120@feddit.de
      3·
      5 months ago

      Or they still think they are entitled to a “free” search engine and don’t see the amount of resources needed for that and that it’s actually a service worth paying for, either through a subscription or through a donation-based service.

      Switching one private company for another is definitely not the way to go…

      • Pigeon@beehaw.org
        4·
        5 months ago

        Or they’re working class or buried in medical bills and can’t afford to be spending money on things like search engines that have a free alternative, even if it is worse.

        I’m not actually convinced the alternatives are any better here, anyway.

      • moon_matter@kbin.social
        1·
        5 months ago

        Careful about how you throw around the word “entitlement”. The top competition is free and search engines are very low value for the average person. It’s very reasonable to expect search engines to be free and for anything paid to be a niche product. Google search results may be terrible, but not so terrible that I’m going to pay $5/month to escape it.

      • petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        1·
        5 months ago

        Subscription services still get worse. The arrogance Cable TV must have to show us ads—cable was the ad-free service back in its day. The same is happening with Netflix. The same will happen with Spotify. This thing is a snake eating it’s own fucking tail.

        I want something without perverse incentives. Donations, maybe. Taxes, possibly. I get free roads, why not a free search index.

    • ranandtoldthat@beehaw.orgEnglish
      2·
      5 months ago

      Amazingly Google is still the best unpaid search engine, as bad as it has become. Terrible websites have completely taken over the web. To find actual information you need access ProQuest or EBESCOhost or something like that, though their indexes are much smaller.