Is Google Search Sunsetting?
It's possible Google sees the future and will leave their woeful search to wither.
It’s hard to imagine that any Google executive uses Google Search regularly and thinks the results are good. Maybe they have a special internal version that strips out all the sponsored links and ads so they get accurate results. That would explain a lot.
The original team at Google stressed that speed was of the utmost importance. Tests support their view. But quality matters too.
Before I stopped using Google Search, it would take several queries and clicks to get close to anything I was looking for. That makes sense when you consider that their monetization technique and business model rely on me not finding what I’m looking for (unless it’s a link to buy something.)
The response time was great, but the response was mostly useless.
Some new search companies are springing up and getting some press. Even Microsoft Bing is being talked about as they consider adding ChatGPT functionality.
I was happy to discover a Google Search alternative called Kagi and shared my enthusiasm. It saves me countless hours in my work. (Kind of like Google Maps and Wyze does when I travel but more on that below!)
ChatGPT is said to have kicked off a “red alert” for Google, but I’m not sure. I’ve used ChatGPT at some length and admire what it can do, but it’s still got a long way to go and is a different use case.
If not Search, then What?
I already alluded to it above. Google has a lot of irons in the fire. They are not blind to what is going on in the industry.
Nobody has more data than Google. They can see what’s happening with “generative AI” and other technologies.
For at least a decade, we described Google as a “one trick pony” but quickly added, “it’s one helluva trick!”
Google has invested heavily in security, wearables, cloud infrastructure, and video. YouTube continues to get bigger and more dominant. It’s also grabbing lots of advertising budget.
Against that backdrop, perhaps it’s almost quaint to think about Google Search and AdWords and AdSense as being all that important in the long term.
It’s a cash cow, but by that definition, it’s not a focus of investment and innovation.
There’s a growing sentiment that some of the drivers of large-scale growth are getting tapped out - smartphones are now in more of a replacement cycle, gaming is vast and growing, but it’s incremental, whatever “social media” is feels a little played out, and online advertising has made a mess of content that relies on ads.
More technology companies are focusing on areas like smarter cars, but that’s already a pretty crowded space. Facebook decided to bet on the $METAverse, but that’s not likely to be meaningful soon.
So far, I haven’t met anyone who enjoys talking to their computer or wearing a VR headset. People love video, though.