[aleph_minus_one]

> “People come to us because we are trusted,” Raghavan said. “They may have a new gizmo out there that people like to play with but they still come to Google to verify what they see there because it is the trusted source and it becomes more critical in this era of generative AI.”

Seriously, in which reality-distortion bubble does Prabhakar Raghavan live?

[CuriouslyC]

Google deserves to burn at this point. They had the rest of the field lapped, they were set up for a victory prance into one of the most lucrative markets of all time, and Sundar has just burned all of it. Dude has zero long term strategic vision, he's a MBA bot set to "plunder light" and he's getting embarrassingly outplayed by Satya Nadella.

[Rinzler89]

>“They may have a new gizmo out there that people like to play with but they still come to [us]

Same last words from the Nokia and Blackberry CEOs when that new gizmo from Apple came out in 2007.

>Seriously, in which reality-distortion bubble does Prabhakar Raghavan live?

The Gavin Belson one.

[afavour]

I actually think he’s right. Us Hacker News types don’t trust Google at all but for the average person it’s where they go to find information, and we’ve seen time and time again that the majority either don’t understand or don’t care about many privacy concerns.

All this stuff is a little handwavey but a 2023 report:

https://pro-assets.morningconsult.com/wp-uploads/2023/05/Mos...

Has a specific breakout about Google. Interestingly the subbrands (Google Maps particularly) are more trusted than Google as a whole, but it’s still relatively well trusted as a company.

[Clent]

Data dumping a 57 page pdf about Global brands is the best way to communicate something specifically about Google.

But based on the graph I assume you're talking about page 12 which has a graph of various Google products. The data only goes back to 2018 and ends in Apr 2023. There is a clear downward trend since then Google Maps is the least affected but is still down from the low.

The trend I've seen is people on here have voice a significant lost trust over the past year. A loss of trust that is only growing. I feel its safe to assume we loss trust first since this is our industry.

If we're losing trust and the general public has already losing trust, I expect that general public's trust to catch up soon and show a steeper decline.

Anecdotally, I've already seen dissatisfaction with Google coming up more and more frequently in the areas of the internet I visit where the topics are far less technical. Unlike here those people are less aware of the alternatives.

I expect that when people realize Google is the new Boeing, they will abandon it quickly. There are many alternatives.

[afavour]

> The trend I've seen is people on here

Right but my point is that we’re weird outliers. I can absolutely believe that the general public’s trust in Google is lower than it was a decade ago but from what to what? If people really didn’t trust Google would Chrome still be the overwhelmingly popular browser choice?

I simply don’t see the evidence that the level of distrust seen in HN is reflected in the general population.

[Zigurd]

Slide decks like that make me feel like there is another species out there for which brands matter. It's literally disorienting.

[afavour]

Those decks feel absurd but brands do matter. There’s a slide in there about hospitality brands… when staying in a new city I absolutely look to the hotel brand when making a reservation, because the experience tends to be very consistent across locations. It’s not like “ooh I have such a fondness for the Marriott logo”, it’s “I’d like a consistent experience so I go to Marriott”.

[leosanchez]

Isn't he the Google ads guy ?

[Marazan]

He used to be. Now he is head of Search. He became Head of Search at exactly the same time as when Google Search started becoming completely shit.