If Google struggles, when would you pay | Hacker News Reader

If Google struggles, when would you pay

2 pointsshisisms3 comments

Nope, not a suggestion to pay for search.

But what’s clear is for nuanced answers or topics with depth, most people’s starting point - is a question.

Etc etc How do I fix back pain? What e-commerce platform should I use? Should I use Facebook ads for my brand? Should I move country? [Insert tech stack question here]?

Google used to be an effective starting point to find insightful responses to that question, albeit you’d filter some responses. Now confronted with lots and lots of identikit responses, SEO spam or SEO content for tangential services, it’s become very difficult to answer those questions.

What I’m trying to figure out, is whether there’s a format that people would be willing to pay for to get depth in those answers?

There seems a huge gulf in consumption style between barely useful snippets that Google so readily provides and the complexity of an online course.

Is there an in-between market? Pay per article? Pay per something? Or will no-one ever pay for content perceived as free ever?

I don't think I would pay. Google is a nice example of a business that gets corrupted along the way, from "don't be evil" to giving ads instead of search results.

To be entirely fair, there's been something of an arms race between Google and the SEO bottom feeders (I'd use stronger language, but you know, civility). SEO pressure has caused at least some of the changes in Google (to be clear, advertising money is the biggest corruptor), and cheaply-written or auto-generated SEO web sites are part of the "google results are bad" problem.

I think that even if there was a subscription for "good search results" the search company would fairly quickly try to "monetize" that even further by inserting ads, and then the corruption would take over quickly. We saw this in Google search, and Youtube and now we're seeing it in streaming services. The big initial draw to Hulu subscriptions was "no ads", now they're infested with advertising.

Advertising corrupts.

> What I’m trying to figure out, is whether there’s a format that people would be willing to pay for to get depth in those answers?

Individual people have questions like that every so often and rarely they _might_ be willing to pay for an answer - but who are they going to trust enough to pay up-front for an answer to a question, sight unseen? And how are you going to get in front of them at the right moment?

Never, I want them to die.

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