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by orblivion 5768 days ago
Do we really need this? Isn't the time it takes to finish a query the last problem on our hands? Or am I just a spoiled fast typer?
2 comments

Wasn't Outlook good enough? Did we really need faster search in Gmail?

This is gonna be one of those things you didn't know you needed till you got used to it, then you'll look back and wonder how you ever lived without it.

Well waiting for your computer to respond can be really frustrating. Having to finish typing something isn't so bad. For me anyway. So it'll help, but for such a huge infrastructure overhaul, is it really worth it?
We don't "need" it, but taking Google's stats at face value for the moment, it will save 350 million hours per year. That's not insignificant.
Yea, but at what cost? Are they using more power? I would think so as they not only auto-complete, but also generate countless search results in rapid-fire mode.

For every query, how many more sets of results are returned? On average, it's easily more than one. It's only one when they predict your query.

If people like this and it makes search more server-intensive to run, that works in Google's favor by making it more expensive to compete with them on instant search. They're the champions when it comes to infrastructure, and they know it.