I mean the search engines are being deliberately made more dogshit to serve more ads. Its only gonna get worse

a lot of my so-called talent at work, in terms of skills, comes from googling shit and having the patience to learn. it seems intuitive to me to be curious and look shit up, and the tools to do so (phones, computers) have never been more ubiquitous. people i work with are pretty good, but holy shit my family are fucking rubes about looking shit up. i used to accept it because i was the young one who can computer, but it became like some kind of Ryan Howard “can’t” clean the microwave scenario.

my slightly older sibling one time was treating me like i was their personal researcher about some shit while i’m at work trying to work and they’re chilling, and i started sending them those tiny url “let me google that for you” links and they went fucking ballistic. i guess i hit a nerve. i had to explain, “i have literally just been typing the words into google. i am not a reference book. you have a phone, you’re on the internet, you are literate, you have a graduate degree, handle your shit.”

while i can accept that some people are more skilled at certain things (hanging drywall, small engine repair, defusing conflict), looking basic shit up on the internet is not one of those things i’m not going to accept as “too hard” unless i’m dealing with some kind of outlier scenario like an obscure topic where i have relevant experience, a little kid, an old person, or someone with some kind of barrier. if you can use the internet to buy very special treats for yourself and watch your favorite ragebait, you can use the internet to find out more information about your light bulb needs.

I mean, google itself stole that ability from us. There was a solid, what, ten fucking year stretch where the only way to easily find actual information about something was to google for a relevant Reddit thread. Now it’s just HEY HERE’S YOUR AI LLM SLOP OUTPUT (powered by reddit threads)

you used to be able to type in like a half fucking remembered phrase and it’d be like it read your fuckin’ mind, immediately brings up the shit you’re looking for

Grok, is this true?

lmao yeah it drives me up the wall because 90% of what I do at work is telling people who are smart enough to make upwards of 100k/year using our platform to fucking put their questions into our support center search which definitely has an article detailing the answer to the exact question they’re asking.

Google is one thing though because all of my dumbass friends who I’ve trained to google shit now just read the AI response at the top and go “Google said this” and every time I’m sitting there like “did you just let the AI tell you something probably incorrect instead of looking at at least 2 different links the search provided??? you didn’t even add a ‘[my specific search term] reddit’ to see if there was any answer from Stormfront-lite??”

AI Overview

Based on recent trends, people are not necessarily losing theability to use Google Search, but their behaviors are fundamentally changing due to AI and social media. While traditional search is still widely used, people are increasingly bypassing Google in favor of other platforms that offer quicker, more direct answers or more visual content.

Why search behaviors are changing

Generative AI provides direct answers

• AI chatbots and assistants, including Google’s own AI Overviews and products like ChatGPT and Perplexity, can provide concise, conversational answers directly in the search results.
• This has contributed to a rise in “zero-click searches,” where a user’s query is answered on the search page itself without needing to click on a website link. A recent Pew Research Center study showed that when AI summaries were present, users were significantly less likely to click on traditional links.

The web is saturated with low-quality content

• Many users feel that Google’s results are deteriorating and are now filled with spam, SEO-optimized content, and affiliate links designed to generate revenue rather than provide quality information.
• This erosion of trust causes users to seek information elsewhere. For instance, a common practice is to add “Reddit” to a search query to find more authentic, user-generated discussions.

The shift toward visual and social search

• For a growing number of people, particularly Gen Z, social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube are the preferred search engines.
• Users favor these platforms for visual and short-form video content, which they find more engaging and easier to digest than sifting through pages of text-based links. They also use social media for discovering and researching products.

Google’s results are bogged down by ads

• Google’s search results are more heavily monetized than ever, with many ads and sponsored results appearing at the top of the page.
• This can make it difficult for users to find organic, high-quality results, leading to frustration and a search for alternatives.

How Google is adapting

Google’s declining search engine market share is not lost on the company, which is actively adapting by integrating AI more deeply into its products.

• AI Overviews: These AI-generated summaries offer quick, direct information, though users can switch to a “Web” filter to remove them.
• AI Mode: This experimental feature allows for deeper, more conversational searches and can perform complex tasks like analyzing data and making plans.
• Circle to Search: This feature, popular with Gen Z, lets users perform a search within an app by circling an image or text, without having to open the Google app.

formatting this was a pain, definitely not worth the effort.

I liked when someone at work told me that yellowjackets are bees and I showed him the wikipedia page that says they’re in the wasp family and he was like “no that’s wrong”.

Then another guy came up and he asked him and that dude said they’re bees so he was like “see? I’m right”

Why learn anything when they can make you do it?

ok. have a lot of experience in retail too (ugh). i will say i do think some people just crave the interaction

they know how to look stuff up but they just desperately want an “expert” to tell them. or just someone to talk to and make them feel good

some of this is just alienation. just like if I pick a piece of food out for someone they immediately think it’s the best thing ever because i chose it.

people are losing the ability to find out info thanks to AI though. but sometimes they just want to interact and we are paid and forced to interact with them so we make great social sponges.

Also Sprach Zarathustra

People dont even know how to do a keyword search, or use boolean search terms or other basic search operators, theyll search like *what is the name of taylor swifts third album?"

Here’s a real basic intro I found https://mentionlytics.medium.com/how-to-do-a-boolean-search-effectively-advanced-tips-7b3ef7ba591d

my super power is telling people they can add site:whatever.com to the end of a queerie to filter out other websites

but also, someone calling a store and asking for directions to another store, which you have to look up, is on your employer. It’s how the world used to work, well I suppose all the stores would have been in the same place in the directory and they could have checked a map.

ps google is on the BDS list

For example, Israel’s advanced AI targeting and weapons systems, termed “assassination factories,” are enabled by tech giants, including Google, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, and Palantir. These companies technologically equip the Israeli military with computing systems as well as surveillance and communications technologies to accelerate the genocide in Gaza and automate apartheid in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

https://bdsmovement.net/no-tech-oppression-apartheid-or-genocide

the other thing that shits me is people use searches for everything, which shocker use electricity (i think a 'google search* uses enough power to keep a lightglobe on for a minute?), like everything we do online. And then I’ve had people send multiple single line messages over discord (🤢) to make an argument about how no one should ever use AI for anything ever

i asked an LLM to write a smarmy response to them.

/rant sorry comrades

“Lost the ability” what you’re describing has been my job for 15 years

Hit em with the https://lmgtfy.blankdvth.com/

yandex.com <- here you go