You can have still have ads without invasive tracking, they just might not be as effective. If the difference in effectiveness is enough to make Google, etc unprofitable than maybe there is an argument to be made that it is necessary. If it means they make 10% less profit, people would probably prefer privacy.

Google does not create content yet receives over 70% of money from advertisement. Tracking is one of the reasons for that. Surely it is effective for Google, but does it effective for creators and users?

Possibly. Part of Google's advertising revenue comes from AdWords and YouTube ads. This revenue is split with content creators, enabling them to invest in more and better content to the benefit of their users.

More search ad revenue allows Google to invest more in search. Better search could benefit content creators by giving them more and better targeted users. Users benefit from better search because they are able to find the content they are looking for faster.

I'm skeptical that Google divides its revenue and investment up in this way and that more search ad revenue allows Google to invest more in search.

I'm sure that Google is already investing the amount they need to in search to make it as profitable as possible.

It seems that more search ad revenue allows Google to bank roll the rest of the Google/Alphabet behemoth on projects unrelated to search, but within its mission to "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" ie. to know everything about everything, which I'm sure tracking plays a role in.

> This revenue is split with content creators, enabling them to invest in more and better content to the benefit of their users.

and that's become an abusive relationship where they are being de facto censored by google because of advertisers being skittish. You have more sponsored content showing up because it's a lot easier than relying on google and their amazing algorithms to not screw you over.

That's the 90s. I don't think people were happy with that. I wasn't on internet then, so not 100% sure. In general, I see money as a representative of how effective certain company/technology/etc. is and there were no multi billion dollar companies in 90s (though the internet was young at that point).

I am pretty sure there are tons of things Google/Facebook/Amazon/etc. can improve but not having any data about user isn't definitely one of those approaches.

There were no multi billion dollar companies in the 90s? Seriously? Microsoft had a market cap of hundreds of billions of dollars by the time 2000 rolled around. You folks who came around after the 90s are pretty late to this party ;-).

Somewhere in a dark corner at this party, HP is crying to himself.

HP, Dell and Lenovo are not doing that bad.

IBM and Sun might be crying though.

HP is doing horribly compared to the 80's and 90's.

SUN sadly has kicked the bucket and his picture is on the table with the punchbowl.

The difference was in the 90s you had companies that got those valuations by actually selling technology, instead of privacy hating ad companies.

I think it's a matter of degree, not absolute. You can do targeted advertising without being invasive.

If Facebook wants to target ads on their site based on information I have entered in my pubic profile I am okay with that. If Google wants to target ads based on keywords related to what I am searching for at the time I am okay with that. It's when you start tracking across time and across sites and inferring things I may not to have public that I think it gets invasive.

Google and Facebook know they are being invasive. They specifically don't allow advertising on things that might trigger people and make them realize how invasive they are being. For example, you can't start retargeting people who searched for information on erectile disfunction with ads for Viagra. People would rightfully get upset about that level invasiveness. Instead of not being invasive, they just don't allow the things that would trigger people. If people in general were made to realize how creepy all the tracking is, laws would require advertisers to change.

Given the option I would prefer that not being invasive be the default. If that makes things slightly more expensive, so be it.

While companies weren't as huge as some of the ones today, there were plenty of billon dollar companies back in the 90s. Some you probably know, like Microsoft and Apple.

> I see money as a representative of how effective certain company/technology/etc. is and there were no multi billion dollar companies in 90s

In 99, Yahoo bought GeoCities for three billion dollars. Some of it was the dotcom bubble, but there were plenty of massive companies, and this was when most people did not have an internet connection.

Off the top of my head: IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Intel ... I'm sure I'm missing a lot of them

You'd better tell DuckDuckGo that their non-tracking, non-intrusive adverts aren't going to make them money then!

DuckDuckGo isn't public right? So, this question doesn't apply to them.

Why not? They are a competitor in the search space... Public, private, doesn't matter.

Well.. are they profitable?

Yes, quite profitable since 2014. Turns out it doesn't take many engineers to make a search engine that doesn't track you: https://www.quora.com/Will-DuckDuckGo-get-profitable-anytime...

According to the founder, they have been profitable since 2014.

Anecdotally, I've been seeing more and more success getting friends to switch over to DDG. This feels like early mass-adoption. It's rather exciting.

Well, except for chrome using their near monopoly on search to shove a browser in your face that further cements their place in search. and bundling it with the OS on mobile.

That's not a stable situation. The EU forced Microsoft / IE to unbundle - Google's day of reckoning approaches.

It's demonstrating a viable business model. Their corporate structure doesn't affect the demonstration.

Question is whether there's all that much content worth searching for, when the incentive is to put clickbait left and right, and everybody knows search is heavily gamed and manipulated anyway. Check your recent browsing habits: do you actually visit many sites, and sites you recently discovered via search? Or would searching Wikipedia and stackexchange, say, serve you well enough with some search improvements?

90% of the time I just use a search engine to find the page I’m looking for on Stack Overflow or Wikipedia. Without the search engine it’d just take a bit longer

At least for me Google search is quite helpful. I get into new hobbies every once in a while, travel to new third-world countries. There doesn't exist one or ten places to get this info. I also couldn't imagine living without Google as a college student when the internet was way way younger and immature.

I don't have to imagine it, we managed fine.

This is perhaps the most insidious thing that Google et al have achieved: making so many believe that they and the online ads they peddle are essential for anything. The world will continue to exist without both.

They can show me ads based on what I just searched for then.

This debate isn't about whether ads exist, it's about whether or not they should be allowed to hoard massive amounts of data and track every online action in order to ads that might sometimes be slightly more relevant.

It's ridiculous.