It is not transparent what kind of curations take place to return the results. You cannot have a free market without transparency, and while DDG are announcing this now, they have no obligation to in the future. Previously the status quo was "we don't curate", now it's "we curate but announce it". What's the chance that they will no longer announce it in the future?

> You cannot have a free market without transparency

I've not heard this before. So I need to know the wages of the workers, what the CEO had for breakfast, the favorite color of all employees, the inventory and sales, etc for every single company in order for it to be a free market?

I'm not arguing that knowing these things would be bad but actually curious of the boundaries you would draw when you say "transparency" such that it would encompass the exact algorithms used in a privately-owned search engine.

The more mature a market the more you would know. Transparency material to the market transaction. Knowing what employees ate would rarely provide value to whatever transaction you have. Understanding their selection process for the content they provide to you would be.

What the hotdog vendor dreamed of last night doesn't inform my buying decision like the fact that it fell on the floor earlier would.

Maybe I want to know if the employees are all vegan or something before I support that company. I guess I'll frame the same question in a different context: if all needs are subjective, how do you objectively determine which information is important for a transaction?

> It is not transparent what kind of curations take place to return the results.

This is true for all search engines because it's literally impossible to return even half decent results if everyone knows your algorithm. It'll just be pages and pages of SEO nonsense. If you believed for even a second that search engines can exist without curating you haven't been thinking very hard. Not curating would only ensure that you see nothing but propaganda.

Could it work?

A search engine based on popularity is the basis of google 2004.

What no one has done is a search engine where you can select who's version of what's popular to use. What do people in my area.. My age group.. My shared interest visit when they search 'eye blush'

> you haven't been thinking very hard

Please ensure you're following the HN Guidelines[1] when leaving replies :^)

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Free markets require competition. Are there other search engines of similar quality that don't do this?