Enshittify search to the point of it being nearly useless. Then introduce a little bot to find it for you. Predictable.

I want todays content in 2002 search engines.

What kind of revisionist bullshit is this?

Like, it's almost always safe to write off anyone using "normies" but do you think 2002 was like in movies/TV?

"The net" wasn't some secret thing, kids had been using it in school for over a decade.

I can't tell if you weren't born then or already 50 years old...

But wherever you're getting your opinions on 2002 internet, it wasn't first hand

I'm reading comments on arstechnica and seeing people mad at... what exactly?

The reason I go to web search is to answer my questions. Now it's given to me at once, without need to go anywhere.
Is it sometimes hallucinating? Of course it is, but have you really 100% trusted information on the Internet before anyways? I haven't.

You say that ads driven websites are going to stop receiving money. But have you really liked ads driven websites? The same ones whose main incentive is to keep you on the website as long as possible or, in fact, wasting as much your time as possible to sell it to ad companies? The ones that were really worth visiting already changed their business model.

Is that word 'gone' ? That place was shut down a week ago.

As a 50-something, I can see the case for putting the “golden age” of the internet between the birth of Wikipedia in 2001 and Facebook in 2006.

As intended.

Yes. The secret to telling what a search engine wants you to do is whatever is on top of the search results.

You and I might scour the results to find the exact best results, but most people simply look at the very first thing they're presented with and call it a day.

When I saw all of the search engines putting AI answers first, I knew they were intentionally trying to stop people from clicking through.

same actually, Kagi is pretty solid

If you aren't paying, you're the product.

What sucks is that I can't unbundle their AI shit from my subscription

I forsee a future where kagi subscriptions are bought by libraries and that's basically the only place to do internet searching for free.

Try and guess what happens when websites stop getting traffic.

Punch the Monkey, Shake the Tree, Bonzi Buddy, flash animation, sites that only worked in IE, etc, etc.

You're right, anyone who thinks 2002 was some golden age of the internet clearly wasn't there.

I'm not sure I fully understand the play here. Like, what's the grand vision? Fewer click-throughs == less ad impressions, no? They just want you to see the AdWords ads only? I'm not sure it's a fully-baked idea. I'm not convinced they can really create a moat around all information on the web

Would welcome any additional insights

Looks like search will be dead soon.

Google probably wants to keep you on google.com, where they have ads. By doing the AI stuff, you never click through to someone else's page. They get 100% of the interactions and can sell all the clicks.

It's monopoly stuff. They should be stopped, with whatever box of liberty is needed.

Any hope this takes SEO out with it, or are we just going to get to a point of PR companies flooding AIs with data to benefit their clients?

It's to keep you on Google as long as possible. Google doesn't care about ad impressions off-site. Look at it this way:

You search for something and AI surfaces full answers to you at the top. Now, Google can "alter the deal" in the near-future where "sponsored AI results" come into play and are incorporated into The Answer. THAT is the gold mine. Right now (and forever) it's been about being on the first page of results and now it's about being the first result "above the fold" so people don't even need to scroll. This is going to change to be the "AI answer" so your website / product / service is mixed into the answer. Pay-for-play just like everything else.

This method will rapidly train users to just search, view AI results, then click through those paid results or move onto something else. Those AI incporated impressions will make Google money and the possible click-through from the AI answer will yield more money.

Companies are already working to optimize so AIs will recommend their products and services when people ask things like "I'm going on vacation to the mountains for a week. What gear would you recommend?"

Kagi. Kagi is the answer. Been using it for 3-months and it's absolutely worth the $5 a month.

Kagi is worth it though. Been paying for 3-months and the ability to search, get info, click through quickly is a breath of fresh air. It's what Google USED to be. Plus it downranks pages with excessive trackers, you can prefer or omit websites from results based on personal preference, and it'll even alert you when websites have paywalled answers. The Kagi free trial is all I needed to be convinced.

Makes sense, thanks. I guess I just wasn't cynical enough to see it right away