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The man who killed Google Search?

(www.wheresyoured.at)
1884 points elorant | 3 comments | 23 Apr 24 16:43 UTC | HN request time: 0.465s | source
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wayne-li2 ◴[23 Apr 24 19:50 UTC] No.40136429[source]▶
Even though I agree with what the author is saying, the tone of this article is off putting to me. There are ways to call out people for being bad at their job without resorting to “class traitor” and “ratfucker”.

That being said, Google search is 100% dead. I append “reddit” to every Google query to get actual results from people, and I don’t see it on Reddit, I give up on my query.

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sailfast ◴[23 Apr 24 20:07 UTC] No.40136657[source]▶
Agreed - I can appreciate the sentiment and the history, but the ad hominem is not really necessary to prove the point and undermines the credibility of the post.

I still use Google, but man has it become difficult to get to what I want.

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1. juped ◴[23 Apr 24 22:14 UTC] No.40137997[source]▶
Using a pejorative is not an "ad hominem".
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2. barfbagginus ◴[23 Apr 24 23:19 UTC] No.40138509[source]▶
Yeah, the pejoratives were not the argument. They were clearly put there to make the reading /freaking hilarious/ for anyone on board with "Google Bad".

But I wonder if there was a deeper strategy: were the attacks put there so that Google gatekeepers would ignore the article's insights?

It could have a similar effect to Cory Doctor's concept of enshittification. I don't know if it's intentional, but the vulgarity of the term seems to prevent committed enshittifiers from reflecting critically about enshittification and how to stop in time to avoid a collapse. After feeling the insult, enshittware supporters seem to conclude enshittification is a non-existent category.

It would be fun to learn these are intentional choices, designed to sabotage the criticized party on an epistemological level!

3. sailfast ◴[24 Apr 24 19:30 UTC] No.40148530[source]▶
Good point. Replacing with pejorative would likely have been better wording potentially to get my point across but simply having held a role in the past as a person does not automatically associate you with all the sins of anyone ever in that role, so I see it as a personal attack unrelated to the point of the article.