> I’m tempted to call hypocrisy here..

You can call it hypocrisy but it doesn't affect the validity of Tim Cook's argument [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

It may not affect the validity of the argument, but it may suggest something about the motivations of the person making the argument.

Each person's idea of where something sits on the spectrum of right and wrong differs.

If someone is being hypocritical, it can lead people to question the motive behind the words.

This is considerably better than the way I put it! Thanks!

andy_ppp was not trying to invalidate what Tim Cook was saying but just remind everyone that the motivations here may be less than altruistic

I think you are right but then I was never saying anything about the points, I was saying personally I’d find it difficult to make statements in direct contradiction to my actions. Which wasn’t clear and logical fallacies are definitely worth consideration! Maybe you have show a little bit of cognitive bias assuming I was trying to undermine the points he makes.

>>I think you are right but then I was never saying anything about the points

I think perhaps you should. It would improve the quality of the discussion.

http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html

I do get your point and agree but most users are uneducated and will most likely have problems with DuckDuckGo and be confused to what happened to their Google and why is it deleted. So I guess it’s another side to consider. That’s no excuse thou. Apple should at least ask the question in the onboarding.

Also you can't just forget the point, that you will not find the same results on DuckDuckGo and Bing and others that you find on Google. That is my #1 problem with switching to another search engine. It doesn't show me the results that I need, especially for technical questions. Google does.

I tried DDG a few years back and was of the same opinion as you until I decided to have another look back in August this year (which coincided with a switch from Chrome to Firefox). I'd say I find 90% of what I need now - ie I only end up using g! for one in ten searches. Probably fewer, actually.

(and like you, a lot of my work-related searches are technical in nature)

The problem isn't that DDG misses 10% and you have to try g!.

It's that you never know whether it's missing 10%.

If it is a while since you last tried the switch, startpage is worth a go.

I recently built a new laptop and set it as the default, after several failed attempts in the past. I now rarely find myself struggling with tech related searches as I had done previously. Consequently, it has stuck this time. YMMV obvs.

I might give it another go. I also really really like the guys behind DuckDuckGo, so I'm still hoping they can get their search algorithm on par (or at least near) Googles'

With DuckDuckGo you can always use the !g syntax to switch to google if first results don't suit you need.

By my experience DDG usually provide way more appropriate answers when you are looking for a reference or a documentation entry. Google still is better for recently pushed contents like news and is still marginally better for finding result inside Q&A sites. After 1-2 years of DDG by default I tend to know in advance which query is best for which search engine and so I half conscientiously add the !g while typing when needed.

I don't know why so many DDG users use '!g' unless they're using Edge or just aren't aware that Chromium and Firefox both let you create an arbitrary keyword like 'g' for a search provider, which is a lot easier to type.

Some of the other bang commands do look useful, though.

Guess I have a "localized" deformation as french keyboard include a ! character accessible without any key modifier, so it's actually pretty straightforward to use.

That won’t take you through DDG’s anonymizing proxy though.

For me, !g just redirects to a normal Google search.

It's either that, or Apple's users use Google for free. I'd take the $12bn as well, thank you.

Google’s probably going to make about $130-140 billion, gross, in 2018. Twelve billion is a huge chunk of their profit margin.

Given that the source on this is one guy at Goldman Sachs, I’d treat that number with some suspicion.

As a user, I can choose to change the default at no cost.

I'm curious what would apple use if google was not paying, or if google charged apple? This seems backwards to me.

They're literally the biggest tech company in the world. Couldn't they build their own? I mean, it wouldn't be great at first but seems like a worthwhile project (and Microsoft managed it with Bing, so there's precedent there).

I work for Google but not on Search.

I think the issue is that besides the money they don't really have a competitive advantage so it'd be difficult to catch up given how long Google has been doing this for.

First of all Search is well outside their domain expertise; they aren't really well known for doing either search/MI or even web services well.

Secondly, it takes a long time just to get all the infrastructure set up. There is an unbelievable amount of build/test/deploy infrastructure that Google has been able to set up over the many years of doing search. I certainly think Apple has engineers smart enough to make it happen but in the end building the stuff takes a large amount of time.

And this is all assuming they use AWS/GCP/Azure instead of deploying their own data centers.

It's very much the same difficulty that Google has trying to make hardware to compete with Apple. They have so much experience and expertise in that area already. There's no way Google could make a phone faster than the iPhone: Apple makes their own chips! So instead Google has to compete in the areas where they have a competitive advantage, for example by using AI to make very good cameras.

Ehh, Bing still isn't that great. I've had to use it on trips to China, and it routinely misses stuff that I'd expect to see on Google.

Apple could do it, but they are a trillion dollar company that hasn't even gotten Maps completely right yet - let them work on one thing at a time...

> They're literally the biggest tech company in the world. Couldn't they build their own?

A search engine is a big enough process—and difficult enough—that you can't just throw money at it and expect it to work in the end. They could try, certainly. And maybe they'd succeed, and maybe they'd fail. And maybe they'd succeed but end up with a successful business unit whose goals are opposed to the rest of the company's.

Bing or Yahoo. Google profits even after spending 12b. It’s a substantial amount of traffic and could help put one of the smaller guys back on the map.

It's very easy to change the search engine to duck duck go.

Google and Facebook aren't selling your data though.