[lucb1e]

So do I, but my livelihood does not depend on it, so I can safely do this and encourage people to use another search engine. Any other search engine. Even if you fall back to Google if you can't find something, at least use another search engine by default. I don't think that's too harsh to ask of a tech audience (which is the audience of my websites).

Of course, if your websites generate income based on people that came from google, I would not expect you to follow suit. As I mentioned in the post, the idea is that there are lots of resources on the web that are not there to turn a profit, but that are still valuable to people. Google is not listening when we use words, so I took action.

[StevePerkins]

But... how does this encourage anyone to do anything? No one knows who you are or what your site is, and I'm sure Google couldn't care less. This sounds like the technical equivalent of someone refusing to drive on public roads because taxation is theft or something.

[lucb1e]

The "google couldn't care less" part I address in the post as well: I'm well aware that my site by itself will never have any significant impact.

As for how it encourages anyone to do anything: one site is not enough, but if a few people do this, the word starts to spread that you might need to try another search engine to find the more obscure things on the internet. People here seem to like the idea (judging by its positioning in the thread), and a lot of the tech community reads this. A few minutes ago, someone reached out via chat because they recognized my username. Those are the people that also make decisions at google or friends of people that make those decisions.

I understand where you're coming from, but I think it's more like voting than like your taxation comparison: your vote never matters, why bother? You don't have a voice in the government. None. But still, people vote. Collectively, we can make a difference.