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‘Reddit can survive without search’: company reportedly threatens to block Google
(www.theverge.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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Technology
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Whelp with that I guess my leaving Reddit will go from 99% to 100%. Literally the only reason I’ve ever on that site is because I have a Google search result now. It was the last useful thing about it. Google has terrible results now and Reddit search is useless. They only work when together.
I will believe that Google can figure out a way to filter the spam -- I mean, beating the spammers was their core value-add that made them what they are today. The spammers have pulled well ahead for maybe a year, but Google can maybe figure out a way to pull ahead again.
But there is no way that Reddit is going to be a reasonable forum site without a way to search it. Maybe it doesn't have to be Google, but they have to have something sane.
Even aside from people searching, some people contribute specifically so that the information they provide can be found by people searching down the line. If it's just going to a black hole...
I just don’t think Google cares anymore. They don’t have any legitimate competition. Their web browser dominates, their search is literally a verb now, and nobody’s changing anytime soon. The search has been terrible for a solid two years now and I just don’t see it getting any better. They have incentivized an entire industry designed to push low effort noise to the top for over a decade. It would take an unbelievable amount of work and dismantling said industry, or at least heavily augmenting it, to right the ship again.