Hacker News Reader

Comment by dismalaf | Hacker News Reader

Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, even YouTube (Google property but not Google the search engine) are all paths to discovery. To a lesser degree sites like HN. There's also nothing actually stopping anyone from going to Bing or something. My Chrome browser takes me to Bing if I type in it or change the search engine...

Also de-ranking SEO spammers is a net positive IMO.

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They are paths to discovery, but are they actual drivers of traffic?

My impression is that if you aren’t listed on google, your site is pretty close to dead. In any case, if you somehow managed to drive traffic via other social media, you are one underpaid moderator’s hasty decision from ruin.

The point isn’t about deranking spammers it is about concentrating a huge majority of traffic (and therefore power) in the hands of a single entity which is unaccountable to anyone.

I think traffic/discovery patterns are a really good distinction. Something like Hacker News, Reddit etc will drive a lot of traffic in a short burst. People are sharing "cool stuff" and visiting it in one go.

Ideally, we need a fix as well for more regular discory of problems people have. If I want "Norwegian cooking blogs" google will probably return me mostly spam, and waiting for someone on reddit to maybe post something in that category obviously isn't an option.

Oddly enough using google to search “site:Reddit.com Norwegian cooking blogs” is actually a great strategy.

Another thing to consider is that those sites would rather you did you click those links. They don't benefit when you leave the platform and they down rank things they think will cause users to leave the walled garden regardless of the content.

There is nothing stopping people from going to Bing sure but I think you are forgetting that most people now a days interact with the internet through a mobile device.

Typing w w w . b i n g . c o m on a mobile device is are a huge barrier to entry vs just using the google search box Google pays the phone manufactures to bake into the the OS.

There is absolutely something stopping me from going to Bing and I wager it's the same reason with most other people:

Despite how awful Google has become in recent years...Bing is still consistently worse.

> There is nothing stopping people from going to Bing sure but I think you are forgetting that most people now a days interact with the internet through a mobile device.

If anything I'd say mobile demonstrates that Google doesn't have a monopoly... TikTok literally occupies a majority of gen Z's app usage... 4 of the most used mobile apps (Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Facebook) all belong to Meta. My wife doesn't even know which browser is on her phone (Samsung Internet)...

Wait: which manufacturer's OS doesn't let the user switch the search engine to Bing in Settings?

They totally let you. How many people do you think go in and change the default? Otherwise paying to make Google the default would not have any value.

> Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, even YouTube (Google property but not Google the search engine) are all paths to discovery.

Add blogs, News sites, and forums - to that as well.

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