How Google is Driving Me Away
I’ve been using Google search since it first beta’d back during the Dotcom days for one reason – it gave me better search results than anything else on the web.
Back then, the major search platforms/portals included Alta Vista, Yahoo, Lycos, AOL plus a bunch of smaller ones like AskJeeves.
When Google launched, it blew them all out of the water in terms of accuracy.
For over 20 years, I’ve been a big Google fan. I’ve used Gmail, Google Office, Chrome, Google Voice, Google hosting, YouTube and of course search. I’ve used it both personally and professionally. I’ve been a paid subscriber of multiple Google products for over 13 years.
But that is coming to an end. And the irony is Google Search is driving me away.
When I search for something on Google today, the first results are always ad links. Having to scroll through a list of ads for Toyota, Hyundai and Nissan, when I am searching to learn how to reset my Honda’s tire pressure monitors is maddening.
Then it gets worse.
Because later on YouTube I am inundated with ads for anything I might have searched for in recent days.
Google is stalking me and I don’t like it.
When I search, I am usually looking for information. I am not looking to buy something.
But Google’s business model is that every search is a “search to buy”.
I never buy based on advertising. I never click on sponsored links, except by accident.
I can say for sure that I’ve never bought a Hyundai or even considered one when I was searching for Honda.
I never subscribed to overpriced Butcher Box when I was looking for my local grocery store’s weekly specials.
I skip every YouTube ad possible. I try to not even read the ad links in my google searches.
But I’ve had it.
I’ve been using DuckDuckGo instead. The search results are decent. Unfortunately DDG also makes money selling advertising and return a list of ads at the top of every search. The difference is that DDG doesn’t chase me all over the internet with ads on other sites (probably because they can’t).
I’m considering Neeva, which is a subscription search engine startup but I absolutely hate to add another recurring monthly charge to my expenditures.
I am hopeful that Apple might create or acquire a private search engine to incorporate into Safari.
I think that Google won’t care when I leave.
I am not their customer. Their customer is the advertiser.
I am their product. I am there to be mined, harvested and sold.
Or at least I used to be.
Homie don’t play that anymore.