[reggieband]

The amount of money a reseller is willing to pay for his goods to appear in a curated list is likely to always be higher than the amount of money a consumer is willing to pay for access to a curated list.

That suggests that a platform that aligns with the needs of the advertiser is likely to earn more revenue than a platform that aligns with the consumer.

For this reason I find it hard to see a dominant "boutique search" company that is funded by anything other than advertisers.

[gopher_space]

This is something that makes more sense as a business ran out of your garage than as an investment opportunity. Someone hand-pruning stack overflow search results wouldn't need much to keep the lights on and could just sign up a certain number of clients.

"Boutique" to me means high end tradespeople focusing on a specific point of view over growth. I can't imagine a search service fitting that category and allowing advertisements. That's not what either party involved is there for.

[elamje]

This is true for consumers, but not B2B

[gopher_space]

Sorry for another reply, but a quick thought:

This is the main problem with Uber. There was never any need for investment. The service itself could run perfectly well without anyone skimming off the top, and there wouldn't be as many mouths to feed running things.

[tenebrisalietum]

Incorruptibility is only possible (and not necessarily guaranteed even) if money is taken out of the equation.

We need an open big-list-of-URLs exchange standard, then one can use some sort of app to create/rewview, upload/download and import/export lists of favorites/URLs.

[cjbgkagh]

Money is an instrument, it’s not the source of corruption.

I prefer the auditors skepticism; anything that can be corrupted, given enough time, will be corrupted.