Appendix 3: Seriously, what are you talking about? My search results are perfect.

If you think your search results are perfect (without appending reddit), then you're probably right. If every single person agreed that Google search results were trash, then Google would already be bankrupt.

Perhaps it is more likely that 80% of people think Google is good enough, and 20% think Google sucks.

I do suspect that the 20% will be growing in number though.

Appendix 4: *Yawn*, this is the 87th time someone has claimed that Google search is dying in the last 20 years. This is a big meme in the SEO world.

"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated" - Google, probably

You're right, there's been a new article bashing Google every few months for the last 20 years straight. It's probably nothing.

Still, it is a bit interesting that this short and simple post is now one of the most upvoted things of all time on Hacker News. There must be a lot of people who resonate with it this time around.

Hard to tell if something significant has changed.

Appendix 5: Random redditor explains it succinctly

u/a_latvian_potato:

I think I understand what this article is trying to say. It's not saying that Google's search technology is worse or that people don't use Google to search. It's saying that people trust less of the results Google shows compared to seeing discussions of it on Reddit.

For instance, if I'm looking to see reviews of the Honda Civic 2022 or whatever, I do find myself typing "Honda Civic review reddit" instead of "Honda Civic review". This is because I want to see what real people and enthusiasts (on r/cars or whatever) are talking about the car, rather than the top results at Google which are basically just paid reviews advertising the car anyway.

Even though I kinda know people in Reddit are just as capable of spouting BS that are completely wrong, I find the discussions more authentic anyway than the corporate speak the "big websites" have on their articles that Google shows me.

Eoin Treacy's view

I have also noticed the quality of search results on Google has deteriorated. A great deal of scrolling is required to get past ads. That’s particularly true for commercial search terms.

The bigger issue is our whole lives seem to have been reduced to a series of cashflows and every online experience is curated by artificial intelligence. That’s true of search terms, job sites, restaurant reviews, Netflix recommendations and Amazon search terms.

The incremental benefit of a new service deploying the same tactics decreases with each iteration. Meanwhile, the problem with relying on data-driven algorithms is they will invariably propose the majority view. Since AI is also now writing content, that gives a great deal of power to companies to sway what results are provided and what kind of narrative becomes popular.

This article from The Atlantic: It’s Not Misinformation, It’s Amplified Propaganda may also be of interest. 

There is also a growing trend to simplify writing styles. This is especially true in the newsletter/newspaper industry. Writing above a sixth grade level on the Flesch-Kincaid score is not recommended for anyone attempting to appeal to a mass market audience. The fact that the emotional age of social media appears to gel with that age group is hardly a coincidence. As ever, the bigger the crowd, the lower the aggregate IQ and higher the emotional reactions.

Google’s price chart is losing uptrend consistency following an impressive 200% advance from the 2020 lows. The failed break above $3000 on positive Q4 earnings and the subsequent drop below the trend mean suggest Type-2 top formation development may be underway.