tomw, 1 month ago

I heard "if you're not paying, you're the product!" so I'll pay some guy to call the Google API for me

I have to log in to do it but he pinky promises not to associate my searches with that account

DetersHenning, 1 month ago

@tomw
I don't trust them for privacy, but their results are better.

tomw, 1 month ago

@DetersHenning I haven't tried it systematically (because costs money etc) but I don't find their free example searches better than Google. Somewhat different, mostly in removing some spammy results it seems, not really better overall. Certainly nothing like the night-and-day of switching from Yahoo (or whatever) to Google back in the day.

kaelef, 1 month ago

@tomw thing is, increasingly, you're the product even when you're paying

datarama, 1 month ago

@tomw ...and is run by AI true believers.

That said: Paying for search is not necessarily in itself a bad idea (like paying for email). It's better to be the customer than to be the product - or, as it were, the raw material for the product.

tomw, 1 month ago

@datarama That aphorism (not paying/product) is doing so much work for people who are basically just resellers