this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2024
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Not quite. It’s largely because a manager decided that an important metric for Google to be better at was “how much time users spend on the results page” which turns out you can game by just making the results worse so users have to stay there longer. Management made a decision to focus on metrics that are counter to what users would actually want because… well, here’s a better article that explains it:
https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/
Goodhart's law is an adage often stated as, "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure"
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
It's especially frustrating as the whole point of the Google search page was that it was designed to get you out on your way as fast as possible. The concept was so mind blowing at the time and now they're just like nevermind let's default to shitty
The bean counters move in and company focus shifts to money. It's not new.
My dad told me a story back in the 80's about outfitter (camping equipment) stores. A few started selling clothes on the side. The profit margins were much higher on clothes. So that section kept getting bigger until it was a clothing store with a outfitter name. People stopped shopping there, and they'd go out of business.