The author is regretfully realizing that in this day and age when so much of the discoverability of the web is dominated by Google, Facebook, and a handful other players, content is a commodity that these gatekeepers compete over for the privilege of serving as entry-points, and with it, getting analytics and ad network data. But on the plus side, it's a free CDN, if you're passionate about your content.
Actually realised last week I hardly use google search anymore. And cant remember the last time i saw - let alone clicked on an ad (clickbait excluded).
Not that I've switched to another search provider as much as search isn't the entry point to the internet it once was (especially with no google on tor sites).
That techies like me dont rely on them any more and non techies all share stuff via facebook must be hurting their page and ad hits.
Makes me wonder if this is more a move of desperation on their part. Food for thought even if it is a little too forward thinking.
And knowing "how and what" to search is really teasing out of the index the magic combo of jargon, phrases, and synonyms through repeated refinements on your query. That approach works just as well on Google or ddg for me and the bang syntax on ddg for domain specific searches has really sped up some of my searches over what I used to do on Google.
I'm drawing a distinction between use/rely and how it was previously.
Does anyone still have google search as their home page? And if they do, do they use it?
When was the last time you got past the first page of results? (and btw, its so rare that that people do now did you know if you get past the first couple of pages it checks whether you are a bot).
Im contrasting how it used to be (reading google results making up a good majority of the time online) to how it is now (no more than 1 or 2 pages a day, sometimes not even that in a week)
You are wildly extrapolating from your own experience. I'll provide a counter anecdote.
Google is my home page, I use it so often I don't think about using it. I can't think of one thing I've searched for this morning. But opening my history reveals half a dozen things I've searched for. Most of the time I "knew" my destination but google gets there quickest.
And I'm not sure I ever remember spending a long time reading google results, for me google became my go to precisely because it was so quick I didn't have to spend long just get to the results.
It's true that social media provides a lot of traffic to places around the web but search is still huge.
Yeah, definately picking up a "omg he doesnt google ten thousand times a day" vibe.
Kinda guessed as much from the start (hence the - probably to forward thinking conclusion).
But probably worth pointing out. The reason i noticed I hardly used google any more last week, was because I did a search and realised it had been so long since i saw google search results on a desktop i almost forgot what they look like.
And yeah, i know that is because i spend most of my time now on places like hn, closed networks with all the technical manuals you could ever need on hand, specialist forums or tor sites that google doesn't even know exist let alone provide search functionality.
But i am definately not alone. And it definately looks like the future (or at least more like what the internet used to be). Infinately more valuable information. No spam bots or corporate advertising. Just experienced techies sharing knowledge, skills and resources.
But all that is irrelevent to the point that unlike historically techies arent earning google revenue and non techies really dont use google that much.
We went through a time when adsense completely dominated the ad market.
Yet there is another google "dependancy" I havent seen for a very long time.
And that i share with pretty much everyone techy enough to install an ad blocker.
eBooks. The manual/documentation. Asking someone else working on a similar problem (who will then usually send over an ebook or other documentation I didn't have).
