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by mattmanser 616 days ago
Google search has totally craptastic'd out.

Same with Amazon, it's now just sponsored spam. I just don't get why they think it's a good idea.

2 comments

They don’t have to care ? That is the problem of monopolies.

There is no incentive to improve the product , there is every incentive to degrade quality because what are you going to do not shop at Amazon or not search with google ?

Fortunately for there are competitors for Google now, like Perplexity[0], ddg, and that one I always see on hn that costs money but everyone is happy to pay because it's that good. They may not have the mindshare Google has, but if Google continues the enshittification of search, people will flock towards better things.

Unfortunately, I can't think of a similar competitor to Amazon. Ebay? Walmart?

[0] https://www.perplexity.ai/

Amazon has many competitors. Grocery stores, warehouse clubs, apparel stores, home goods stores, the list goes on.

I do shop at Amazon, but there are many goods that I could buy there but that I get elsewhere - food, cleaning supplies, clothes, home goods of all kinds, on and on. Some I get when I go grocery shopping each week, while others I get from other online sources.

I don't intentionally avoid Amazon specifically; the reason is that shopping at Amazon is an unpleasant experience ridden with ads, no-name goods of unreliable quality, and sometimes unreliable shipping. I just don't think to get these things from Amazon, the same way I don't have to think about not going into a dirty old store with high prices. I just don't go there.

I'm not sure if "search engine that was good and is now sometimes crappy and full of ads" is worse than "AI-powered plagiarism factory"[0].

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/randalllane/2024/06/11/why-perp...

> it's now just sponsored spam

Is it? I get a lot of product recommendations from Amazon that aren't sponsored. For example, we bought a countertop dishwasher a few years ago, and then for two months afterwards Amazon kept showing us other countertop dishwashers that we might want to add to our collection.