[MostlyStable]

1) Compared to what? It's really important to compare those reddit results to elsewhere and not the hypothetical "best" answer. Yeah, reddit answers are often not great, but in my experience, the rest of google search has, over the past 10 years, gone to complete and utter shit. If I don't already know where to look (and just want google to get me there faster), 99% of my results are going to be useless blogspam.

2) It's even more important to have an understanding of the _kinds_ of things reddit is good at answering, and which communities provide good answers to those questions. Reddit is so big that there are good and bad versions of almost everything.

[mvdtnz]

1) As always it depends on the query. For categories like cars/engines, gardening/landscaping and DIY stuff I've found that a Bing search often outperforms Google because it returns a dedicated section for internet discussions that isn't focused completely on Reddit. Here's an example of that section from a search about manifolds for an old engine[0].

There is a TON of (actually good) community discussion on such topics on "the old internet" as long as it doesn't need to be timely.

For topics that need more timeliness, I don't have a good answer. The internet in general is so enshittified that maybe Reddit is the only good answer when the alternative is AI-generated garbage.

2) In my experience, for factual information, it's just too much of a minefield. Try finding actually accurate information on Reddit about Roundup/glyphosate, for example. Compare what you find to the actual published research on the topic. It is very hard to find correct information on this topic on Reddit, and where you do see it, it will be downvoted to invisibility. [0] https://imgur.com/a/8NNcwTJ

[nitwit005]

For a subject like pesticides that is both emotionally fraught, and the subject of multi-billion dollar lawsuits, I'm genuinely not sure you can find accurate information anywhere. People are careful to say things like "not supported by credible science", because the industry has paid for some of the research.

[JohnFen]

> reddit answers are often not great, but in my experience, the rest of google search has, over the past 10 years, gone to complete and utter shit.

Fascinating.

I've read so many comments here about how people search reddit specifically in order to get better results, but I've never understood this. I don't find reddit to be better enough for that sort of thing to be worth going to reddit as a first choice.

Perhaps this explains it? I stopped using Google search a few years back because I find it hard to get to useful sites using it.

Are people comparing reddit-specific searches to general Google search results? That would be the explanation, because if I had to chose between the two, I'd go with a reddit-first approach, too.

[KnobbleMcKnees]

It really depends what you're looking for answers to.

If you're looking for more trustworthy product reviews than the ones on an Amazon product page, or you're looking for how to fix an obscure problem with your 3d printer, it's damn reliable. Having the opportunity for open and anonymous conversation on these things increases the chance of meaningful discussion.

For the former, Google search results are a hodge podge of bought-and-paid for "best of" sites, and for the latter dominated by ancient niche forum posts and shitty Quora answers.

Half of the Internet is now soulless self promotion and devious attempts to advertise without you knowing you're being advertised to.

So two cheers to Reddit, frankly. We could do a hell of a lot worse.

[JohnFen]

> If you're looking for more trustworthy product reviews than the ones on an Amazon product page

I totally believe that! But since I personally don't look for product reviews on the internet at all (and absolutely wouldn't look on Amazon), I wouldn't really know.

All I'm saying is that for the sorts of things I tend to search for, anyway, finding good resources on the web isn't that hard, so I never really understood why people prefer to search reddit (unless they already are reddit users anyway, of course).

[KnobbleMcKnees]

Without knowing what those things are this is a rather fruitless discussion.

[jameson71]

It's really good for home type technical questions too. Like a stack overflow for plex or handyman type things for people who want to scan text and not watch a half hour youtube.

What are you using instead of google search?

[JohnFen]

DDG, although I think I'll be switching to Kagi in the future.

> for people who want to scan text and not watch a half hour youtube.

I never use YouTube videos for that sort of thing because I don't really learn well from videos. I'm a text kind of guy. But even for those sorts of things, I never have a problem finding good resources on the web, so I have no reason to have to go to reddit for them.

That's just me, though. It's not a criticism of reddit, just a preference. Reddit is just not my kind of place, so I like to avoid it when I can.