[vog]

"Educating" users is not as profitable as serving users.

Also, a system that adapts to its users is generally more successful than a system that requires users to adapt to it.

Moreover, proper education across the whole population requires, well, a country with proper education across the whole population. So you might have luck in some Scandinavian countries, but not at global scale.

[rootlocus]

> "Educating" users is not as profitable as serving users.

Manipulating "uneducated" users is much more profitable.

[vog]

This is a true statement, but how is this relevant?

What do localized search results have to do with manipulating uneducated users?

[rootlocus]

> What do localized search results have to do with manipulating uneducated users?

Technology shouldn't be magic. People should understand, at least at a basic level, how the internet and search engines work, among many other things. Knowing to search for "cricket sport" shouldn't be arcane knowledge. People willing to allow companies to collect personal data and feed them data without understanding how it works end up living in bubbles such as the ones that got Donald Trump elected for instance.

If everything comes cheap and easy to access (like fake news) and people are sufficiently uneducated to accept them as truths, manipulation becomes much easier. Personally tailored search results are just a small part of the issue. It makes people trustful and dependent on services that might end up betraying them in the end.

[coldtea]

For one, they depend on schmucks willing to give Google their personal data and allow for it to keep their location, preferences etc, in order to give them those "precious" localized/personalized info that would be perfectly possible with no personal info kept and just an additional search word or two.

[leephillips]

Syms: "An educated consumer is our best customer."

Google: "An uneducated consumer is our best product."