Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

Re:Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a... by seanp2k2 on Wednesday June 09, 2021 @01:14AM (#27444453)

I would argue that bad behavior (“bad” = existing more to get ad revenue than to deliver valuable information to users) made this a viable business model for Google. I don’t love snippets, and sometimes they’re hilariously wrong, but I’d rather get wrong info from a snippet vs having a site waste my time and beg me to sign up, blocking the info from view, forcing me to “open in app”, only to find that it was bad info anyway…

Do companies exist to make things that are valuable for users, or do users exist to make money for companies?

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Re:Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a... by hnick on Wednesday June 09, 2021 @03:02AM (#27445079)

If the information is valuable, why aren't we paying for it? That's the problem we still haven't solved. It's why you are Google's product, and it's why companies use that "sticky" behaviour. You need to be a user, a member, a customer - that way you might eventually give them a few dollars instead of glean a little information and forget they ever existed.

I really don't know what a good customer-centric endgame looks like. Maybe a self hosted AI assistant that knows what I need, coupled with a micropayment infrastructure to apportion funds based on where I visit? No idea.

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Re:Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a... by concordDance on Wednesday June 09, 2021 @03:25AM (#27445199)

> If the information is valuable, why aren't we paying for it?

Several reasons:

1. You often can't judge the value of the information before purchase.

2. The downside of having to decide whether or not to purchase is often larger than the value of the information.

3. Microtransaction costs (time and otherwise) are higher than the value of the information.

4. That information is often available for free somewhere else (sometimes people just want attention or to inform others rather than money). The top results are just the ones that spent the most money on SEO (and hence have the most intrusive ads).

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