Because they use an algorithm to extract the data that the searcher is looking for and display it on their site, drastically dropping the chances that anyone clicks through to the site.
Whether it's hostile or not, if they continue far enough, it would choke off the sources. People don't tend to invest time in creating content where there's zero chance to interact with the reader, ever.
Create a site that takes search queries, and return scraped Google results data. Become popular. See how long it takes before it gets shut down.
I do get your high level point, but isn't there some quid-pro-quo involved? People allow Google to crawl, which enriches Google's search product. Some traffic is offered in return for helping their index with high quality content.
Edit: If you doubt the effects widgets have on traffic, take a look at what it's done to Wikipedia traffic[1]. The KG entries used to have many, many deep links into Wikipedia. A lot of those links have changed to deep links into Google.
My default search work-flow is 5 keystrokes+$searchquery which gives me wikipedia results which are not always good, but 90% exactly what I need. I try to minimize my use of Google's services at every opportunity, and I'm aggressive with my router's host file (not to mention uMatrix w/ Chromium and Firefox w/ NoScript/RequestPolicy). It bothers me that I can't black-hole Google's domains on my router's host file w/o screwing up too many websites to count (local to international) because so many have built-in Google web resource dependencies (e.g. googleapis/maps/googletagmanager).
However, I can't believe your argument makes sense to anyone. It seems publisher's want the benefit of Google's traffic w/o having to deal with users preferring not to click-through when they are looking for a 1 sentence answer. There are legit means to preventing Google from indexing one's site.
That's the rub. It's gone way beyond that. Contextually extracted bullet points, full (and sometimes multiple) paragraphs, images, charts, tables, highlighted phrases, etc.
>There are legit means to preventing Google from indexing one's site.
Both sites being used for the answer are obvious affiliate site that cares only about who is giving out the best commission. Doubtful any info they offer is useful.
Search engines have improved. Bing, DDG, Yahoo are all better than Altavista. But none of them are as good as Google. That being said, no entity is above criticism. The monopoly criticism just doesn't fit though, unless we're redefining what that word means.
Pagerank is overrated. It is within a mean field approximation of a simple link count; PR does not improve relevance, it only lets you pick the most popular page from a set of pages that may be more or less relevant. Anchor link text is a far more important contribution to Google's results, but it serves Google well if outsiders get false news about how it works.
IBM and Microsoft got furthest on first mover advantage, shady deals with OEM's plus universities promoting lock-in, and copyright law. Microsoft didn't need patents at all to become a power house far as I can tell. I'm not sure about IBM. Apple succeeded on brand and copyright initially.
So, I doubt they needed patents except to preserve market share later on after they got established. As in, to remove competition like we see with IBM vs Hercules-based company, Microsoft vs Android w/ royalties, and Apple vs Samsung or Mac clones trying to take their products out of stores. Strictly helping them maximize profit and minimize competition in markets they've already taken.
Apple would have gotten just as far, given they've lost most every IP lawsuit they've ever filed. Even their Samsung "win" was reduced so much on appeal it turned into a speeding ticket.
It has always been strange for me to understand Google search as a monopoly. First, there are competitors. Second, it's free (yes, I know you pay with data). Third, you can use the internet without using any of Google's services (except adsense, I suppose). How is Google's search a monopoly when it's the user who is deciding they prefer it to Bing or Duck Duck Go or Yahoo? Perhaps my understanding of monopoly is incomplete because this makes no sense to me.
If I produce content that I want other people to view, I have to cater it to googles requirements or almost nobody sees it. Simply put Google is the biggest driver of traffic and ad dollars.
If you play by (or if you game) Googles rules you can make piles of cash, driven by the traffic they send your way. Then the next day it can dry up with no reason given.
Saying that the user prefers it is a slightly backward way of thinking about it. Does the user prefer it because it is better, or is it because abuse of their monopoly doesn't allow other providers to achieve the same quality of service?
If I produce content that I want other people to view, I have to cater it to googles requirements or almost nobody sees it. Simply put Google is the biggest driver of traffic and ad dollars.
I know of a few bloggers who don't seem to be dependent on Google or Facebook to maintain their business.
1. John Gruber (daringireball.com). He made a name for himself over 15 years and is famous enough to be on the shortlist of people that Apple always reaches out to when they want to do a four or five person press event. He routinely gets VPs from Apple on his podcast.
He sells RSS sponsorships - one at the beginning of the week and one at the end of the week. He also makes money from his podcast.
He did lose half his readership after Google killed off Google Reader, but he said since he never sold his ads based on the number of readers, it hasn't hurt his business too badly.
2. Ben Thompson (stratechery.com). He posts once a week to his blog, became popular and has over 2000 subscribers to his newsletter that he charges $100/a year for. He has one advertiser for his podcast - mailchimp - they sponsored him for an entire year.
3. Marco Arment - first architect of Tumblr, creator of Instapaper, and now Overcast. He is also a decently well known blogger in the Apple ecosystem. He basically created his own podcast app ad sales platform, and has a popular podcast.
4. Horace Deidu. He started out as a blogger/analyst and now he gives speeches and does workshops worldwide.
It's hard getting noticed over the noise, but it can be done. It is possible to create a viable content business without an over reliance on Google.
The argument here is not that it is directly bad for consumers but that Google is bad for producers, and that in the long run, consumers will suffer from less quality content.
Yes. A lot of media critiques try to discern bias in the content. However, bias exists prior to that. What and who is covered is bias. Ignoring a topic could be bias not how the topic is covered.
