So many other options, Google can shut down and some will notice but most will just move on.
Many of the other options use Google search under the hood.
Spine? Testicular fortitude? Integrity? I like it.
Google is bluffing hard here, at the end of the day they won’t give the opportunity to anyone else.
Chicago schools should really contact Kagi. They announced they would be willing to work with schools that wanted out of Google’s AI experience for their students.
I’m not really a fan of Kagi myself. I gave it a try a while back. The issue is that with a limited number of searches I get worse results, because I’m less willing to refine my queries.
With query refinement I can get excellent results on Google. So ultimately Google is better for me than Kagi.
Maybe Kagi could first walk back their AI-first manifesto…
…Or schools could use literally anything else that doesn’t cost an extra subscription…
This article is about 7 years old, before AI was even used as widely as it is now, and it’s referencing their optional AI tool. This doesn’t strike me as “AI-First” but more like “we’re trying to make our AI search assistant more reliable than the rest”.
I get the AI hate and the “paid search” Kagi hate, but saying they’re an AI-First company doesn’t seem right to me. You don’t even get AI results unless you add a question mark to your search. Additionally, you can report websites and images for being slop. Can’t do that with any other search engine.
Schools shouldn’t ever use tools that interrupt a lesson with an ad.
And we don’t know how much (if anything) it costs the school. It certainly doesn’t cost the student a subscription if that’s what you mean.
I started using them 2 weeks ago. Previously I was using DDG, occasionally when searching and didn’t get an answer I added “!g” to query which redirected me to Google, but I don’t think in those scenarios Google ever had better results.
With Kagi I so far did not have need to go to Google or DDG at all.
I also like that I’m in charge. For example I wanted to avoid buying from Amazon. Unfortunately it is not enough to not use their site, because they also show up on top of search results. I can select their service and deprioritize them so now I see other stores when searching for a product.
So far I’m sold.
Google was great 2000-2010, but it got worse, supposedly by SEO manipulations, but I also heard (maybe it was Cory Doctorow) that actually because they are making money on ads they actually have incentive to not provide the best results as they want us to spend more time on their site.
Removed by mod
Sure thing. Here I go. Fucking off…
There is no need to use Google products of any kind in a classroom setting. It doesn’t help kids learn.
The only way to get my university emails is through Gmail. It is so pointless.
Sounds like your university is corrupt?
"Oh no! I can’t use the Google search anymore!! How will I survive this???"
*just opens one of the dozens of alternatives, one of the dozen of meta search engines using Google results, too, or even just putting up their own meta search*I’m used to legislators being idiots with zero understanding of tech (usually demonstrated by yet another totally effective dns block) but Google is a f***ing tech company and should understand how well they can block someone from using their publically available internet service.
And that’s all before even discussing if losing Google AI search can be called a loss at all…
