[1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204425...
55m AUD -> 35.87 USD
(35.87/55)4.3 = 2.8
They have now set a "bar" for acceptable behaviour... the 55million is just a "you've been put on notice"
I think most people's judgement about DDG is from a few uses and from some time ago. It's worth giving it a shot if you haven't in awhile. But give it a real shot, like use it for a few days to get over the "I hate it because it's different" game that our minds play.
And a major benefit now is you don't just get a fucking popup on your phone every time you're just trying to search something. Like seriously, wtf google. Needy much?
It's so laborious to sift through shitty Google search results when ChatGPT will uncover unknown unknowns.
I don't want OpenAI to become the new monopoly de jour, but I'm certainly happier as a user with their platform than I am with Google search.
Google stopped being a powerhouse tool when they dropped advanced search predicates a decade or more ago.
Content was so much better 15-20 years ago, when Google’s tooling was also better.
99% of content creators create content for a single reason: to monetize it. Usually through ads.
The end result is that most content, even if decent, is ruined by ads.
At this point, what percentage of searches are just end up with the user clicking on Amazon, Reddit, or Wikipedia? So much of the other content is low-effort slop, even before AI.
You.com used to have really good search, but it looks like they have veered off into the AI chat space instead.
searxng is a self hostable meta search engine that allows you to basically just use the best search engines and easily switch between them.
It cost money but that doesn't bother me too much, because it means they have a means of making money that isn't just selling my data. I also like that I get to rank the results instead of a program trying to predict what to rank at the whims of some kind of marketing.
The only other major market is weird tech nerds like us, but tbh, a lot of us would rather setup a peertube node then actually make any content for it.
I did used to have Rumble installed on my phone specifically for a single creator that was banned from YouTube, but this guy isn't racist, and isn't even conservative. The ads on the videos were something, lots of conspiracy baiting and "vaccine alternatives" and gold investing. I uninstalled it after a few months because it was using an obscene amount of data, even when I wasn't using the app. I don't know why and I couldn't be bothered to investigate.
I have a super fancy video camera that I bought specifically to make YouTube videos, and I had fun setting it up, but then I realized I don't have any ideas for videos to make.
I often see people complaining about this; but it's just not something I ever experience myself (provided I'm using my account, of course). While I do cultivate my YouTube recommendations using the "Do not recommend again" menu item, I think I've only needed to click that a few times a year - plus most of the videos I watch are from video producers I'm subscribed to (mostly retrotech, sci/tech/edu youtubers and archive film accounts; I do subscribe to a bunch of defence-economics and political youtubers but only because they don't engage in theatrics: it's all very bookish and academic, so that also helps keep the bad content away.
...so if you're seeing extremist and/or conspiratorial content, may I ask if you're clicking the "Do not recommend" menu option (not just the Dislike button) - and have you built a Subscriptions list of consistently non-extremist content? I imagine those are the 2 main things that informs YouTube's recommendation algo.
We got a little peek into this when the GDPR was rolled out and many small and medium companies simply blocked GDPR countries rather than risk the massive fines spelled out in the GDPR. This has lessened somewhat as it has become more clear that those massive fines aren’t being handed out and the language has been clarified, but I sat through multiple meetings where companies were debating if they should block GDPR countries until the dust settled even though they believed themselves to be compliant. They didn’t want to risk someone making a mistake somewhere and costing the company a percentage of global revenues.
Talking about massive fines that destroy big companies and crush their executives is really popular in internet comment sections but it would be extremely unpopular if people woke up one day and found Google was blocked in their country for fear of violating some law with extreme damages.
Where do I sign up to be too big to punish?
Google is a plague, and the sooner its gone the better.
> In return, Telstra and Optus received a share of the revenue Google generated from ads displayed to consumers when they used Google Search on their Android phones.
So Telstra and Optus entered into this agreement and profited from it, too. Singling out Google is a strange choice given that all parties profited.
Kind of like how Microsoft was found[0] to do something similar with PC manufacturers?
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
Some things I'm curious about, and would be helpful context:
- Why did they stop in 2021, and is it normal for these things to take 4+ years to resolution?
- Does Google have similar deals in other countries, e.g. in the US does it have similar deals with T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T? If yes are they are similarly anticompetitive, and if not why not?
- Similar question about the agreements Google has with Mozilla and Apple, to be the default search engine on their browsers.
- Roughly how much would this deal have been worth to Google? I imagine it's not very likely the providers would have chosen a different default search engine, though without this deal they'd likely have more options pre-configured so users would have had more choice (and this I imagine is the primary anti-competitiveness complaint in the first place).
echelon•2h ago
Google is one of the most anticompetitive companies to have ever existed. MaBell has nothing on the new AI overlords.
The browser / web / search / ads thing is insane, and the fact that they've made it so companies have to pay to protect their own brand is beyond fucked. It ought to be illegal.
And they own the largest media company in the world and have a commanding lead in AI and autonomous vehicles. They're bigger than most countries and are poised for world domination.
Break these MFs up already.
To think the government got mad at Microsoft for IE. Jeez. We used to have a spine when it comes to antitrust.
ares623•1h ago
charcircuit•1h ago
X does it too. Instagram does it too. TikTok does it too. YouTube does it too. Reddit does it too. LinkedIn does it too.
It's not insane, it's the standard way to monetize a platform. You have an app that takes you to a page to discover content. When discovering content ads are shown. When viewing the content ads are shown from the platform.
echelon•1h ago
If I own a brand, I have to pay Google ads to rank for my own brand. Google doesn't like the concept of a "URL bar". It's a search bar. My closet competitors can pay for placement against my trademarked name and there's not a damned thing I can do to stop it.
One company should not own all of that surface area. That's practically the whole internet outside of social networks and buying off Amazon.
Google just sits there taxing the whole internet. (And half of mobile...)
Fixes? Here are a few:
1. Take Chrome away. That's the lynchpin of this racket.
2. Make Google (and Apple) support non-scare wall app installs from the web as a default. No hidden settings menus. (The EU would be great and enforcing this.) Don't let them own login or payments either.
3. Best yet: break the company into pieces. If it was good enough for MaBell, it'll be good enough for Google. It'll be worth more as parts anyway - so much of that value is locked away trying to be the sum of parts. YouTube alone is bigger than Disney and Netflix.
charcircuit•18m ago
>If I own a brand, I have to pay Google ads to rank for my own brand
Google will still rank your page even without ads. Normal search results are shown after ads. Other platforms as I mentioned before have search ads. This is not a unique thing.
>Google just sits there taxing the whole internet. (And half of mobile...)
Investing billions of dollars into platforms for other people to build upon for free is not "just sitting there." Unlike other apps like TikTok where the company has to spend resources developing mobile apps, websites can utilize the browser Google is writing.
>Take Chrome away.
If you remove a platform a similar one will take its place.
echelon•2m ago
I'm glad the normies will read your post and find other routes of ingress.
Defaults and distribution matter.
> Investing billions of dollars into platforms for other people to build upon for free is not "just sitting there."
They've spent more in stock buybacks. No better way of saying they don't know how to spend the money.
It doesn't matter how much the trillion dollar company spent. They're an ecological menace. We need a forest fire to clear away the underbrush and ossification, to create new opportunities for startups and innovation capital.
> Unlike other apps like TikTok where the company has to spend resources developing mobile apps, websites can utilize the browser Google is writing.
I wouldn't know because I use Firefox, but on the subject of apps - these are taxed by Google too.
> If you remove a platform a similar one will take its place.
That's literally the point. Something with less surface area moves in and competes.
Companies should face evolutionary pressure constantly. Business should be brutal and painful and hard. Google is so big they'll never feel any pain. That's been bad for the web, for competition, for diverse innovation. Everything just accrues to Google.
Not to mention these tech conglomerate oligopolies get to put an upper bounds cap on startups and the IPO market. They get to dump on new companies and buy them on the cheap when they give up. It's easy to threaten to subsidize competition for any new company when you're making hundreds of billions a quarter.
userbinator•22m ago
charcircuit•15m ago
Also the post you linked to targeted users of adblockers and affected Chrome users using adblockers.