[telchior]

I despise Google Maps for this. I can know that a restaurant exists, zoom in on its block, search 'restaurants' -- nothing. It'll zoom out the map and show other stuff. Worse, I can max my zoom and hunt for it on the map and it will outright show a blank space. Only searching for the restaurant's actual name will bring it up.

But there's not really any alternative. Apple Maps can't show me things because it's missing the entries entirely. Yelp became useless years ago. I feel like we're going back in time because the best way to find local restaurants has become walking / driving around the neighborhood to see what's there, or getting word of mouth recommendations.

[chinchilla2020]

Internet search in general has severely declined in 2023. I was trying to figure out the syntax for putting a URL in slack the other day and couldn't find a proper article anywhere in the top 10 results.

I think they are trying to integrate their bard UI into search and it is killing the results.

At this point, I use google to search reddit in order to find organic results. Unfortunately, that will probably be taken over by spammers soon enough.

[kaliqt]

YouTube is also horrible these days. They made it so for any event or happening, only "official" sources show up so they can add "context" to the narrative. It's dystopian, but possibly worse: annoying. I can't find out what I nees to, when I need to. Thanks Google.

[docmars]

Or they outright silence smaller news organizations that broadcast popular, although controversial, figures who fall under a certain political affiliation.

I'm grateful for places like Rumble and Twitter, where real news can be found. :)

[nvader]

I have some bad news for you...

[karaterobot]

> I feel like we're going back in time because the best way to find local restaurants has become walking / driving around the neighborhood to see what's there, or getting word of mouth recommendations.

Let's face it, that never stopped being the best way. There have always been problems with internet reviews, if only the ones inherent in the 1-5 star mechanism. But, it is very inconvenient to ask around for recommendations when you're (for example) hungry and passing through an unknown town or something. So I get why we need a source that isn't completely unreliable.

[bombcar]

I usually have decent results stopping at the gas station and asking the attendant: “if you had $X for a good lunch where would you go?”

Often it’s a place a bit off the road or harder to find, but I’ve had as good luck or better vs the mapping tools.

[titzer]

Just wait until they control AR/XR. You'll see only what they want you to see.

Search-based interfaces with ranking, controlled by someone else, are all screaming to be gamed and monetized. We should hate this but we don't.

[sss111]

this reads like that black mirror episode "entire history of you"

[efreak]

Perhaps what's needed is a website that doesn't do reviews, but only lists businesses that are open to the public and categorizes them by function (pharmacy, grocery, daycare, etc). Possibly with direct links to review platforms and official websites and so on, but without actually inserting any content (reviews, ad copy) into the website itself; this can be left to other sites.

[beaugunderson]

I've noticed this in the last 6 months specifically. If I search for grocery stores it only shows me some chains and not others now. If I want to see where Safeway stores are at I have to search Safeway; they won't show up under grocery stores anymore.

[mu53]

I have noticed this too. I wonder if those businesses haven't paid an SEO expert to set up their business properly or if they haven't paid google for their "premium" map features

[mortify]

Organic Maps is very good at showing where 'restaurants' are. It's just not very good at showing their hours or including links to their web site or menu.

[wombat-man]

Yeah I've noticed this. It's pretty irritating.