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by endisneigh 1599 days ago
Man, Google’s poor search results sure do pay well /s.

I wonder if Google will make any big acquisitions this year

2 comments

Google is many things, but poor search results is not one of them. Still the best search engine around, being too good is the problem most people have
Not in my day-to-day work. The deterioration is very clear.
how so?
Not sure if sarcasm or not. These results demonstrate that the HN zeitgeist about the utility of Google is not related to its actual utility to the public at large.
This is very noticeable. I remember everyone here saying Atlassian was a sinking ship when they switched to cloud-only. Ever since, its stock has almost doubled. I can probably think of a pretty big list of other things where HN hivemind completely misaligns with how 90% of the normal population thinks.
Most people want the lowest common denominator information. They want to know what most other people think and want.

HN and their desire for niche information is just not representative of the average human.

Doesn't really follow. a) Google is a lot more than search and b) it's not like people noticing "crap, search results are getting worse" suddenly stop using it entirely, given there is no clearly superior competitor. Similarly with many other products.
Technically, revenue decline would be a lagging indicator of poor search results and poor user experience.

But agreed.

Product quality is a leading indicator of profit. If the HN perception is accurate, then it will be a problem in the long term.