Data on search engine market share is available, but I wonder what that looks like for Lemmy users in particular, who I would assume lean more technical than the average user, so probably use DuckDuckGo and alternates more than Google.

I use a mix of DuckDuckGo and Kagi. I’ll also use ChatGPT, which can be good if you’re careful to verify the answers it gives you as a check against hallucinations. It’s useful for short, direct answers without ads or SEO bullshit.

This article on Ars (and if you’re not a subscriber, you absolutely should be, as they are the best tech journalists out there) inspired the question: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/06/google-admits-reddit-protests-make-it-harder-to-find-helpful-search-results

Fucking Reddit. Enshittification ruins everything.

  • @[email protected]
    9•1 year ago

    I don’t understand why lots of you answer with chatGPT. It’s not a search engine! And you shouldn’t use it like a search engine.

    • @[email protected]
      1•1 year ago

      I can see a usecase for where you don’t know where to start or search with, and then verify with actual searches.

      I recently used it to explain for a friend what is the difference between wheat and ale beer, and it gave a very good summary. With DDG I might not get a direct explanation and would need to read a few articles and then word them in a comprehensive way.

    • 雨 月
      0•1 year ago

      Maybe people mainly search for answers to simple daily life questions or something.

      • @[email protected]
        1•1 year ago

        I guess, but it’s still not a search engine and I think it’s a bit problematic if that’s the usecase.

    • tenet
      0•1 year ago

      Except it IS a search engine and that’s basically all it’s good for. By its very nature all it can do is collate information. It’s the only thing AI is good at.

      • @[email protected]
        0•1 year ago

        No it’s not. To search is a specific task, and generative AI can’t do that. It can fulfill some need that we are used to fulfill by searching the web, but this doesn’t mean it’s a search engine.

        If you lost the key of your car and have access to an AI that can (sometimes) start your can without a key, you can be happy about it, but you still can’t say the AI searched the key for you. It can’t do it.

        Edit: btw, we are talking about generative AI here. I’m not saying there isn’t and could not be a search engine that use AI to better its result.

          • @[email protected]
            1•1 year ago

            Why do you have to answer like that?

            You are linking a search engine based on generative AI, which is a different things than using chatgpt per sè and, as I was saying to another user, I did not know existed.

            If you don’t like my answer you can simply not comment on that. I don’t care if you agree with me or not, be polite

            • @[email protected]
              1•1 year ago

              Don’t worry, you are in the right: a LLM is not a search engine. You might integrate it into a search engine, but that doesn’t make it a search engine.

              I mean it’s so glaringly obvious it is not a search engine: every time you ask ChatGPT for information it will give you a disclaimer it’s database is from 2021 and prior…