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The Crumminess of Google Search Falls to the Hands of One Man
Edward Zitron, Where’s Your Ed At?:
This is the story of how Google Search died, and the people responsible for killing it.
The story begins on February 5th 2019, when Ben Gomes, Google’s head of search, had a problem. Jerry Dischler, then the VP and General Manager of Ads at Google, and Shiv Venkataraman, then the VP of Engineering, Search and Ads on Google properties, had called a “code yellow” for search revenue due to, and I quote, “steady weakness in the daily numbers” and a likeliness that it would end the quarter significantly behind.
A blistering read from Ed Zitron breaking down the managerial changes and overall focus on profits before people which has – perhaps irreparably – ruined Google search.
I feel like the term “enshittification” has become an overused shorthand for “thing I don’t like”, but this is the term at its purist. A focus on Fuck Yours, Got Mine on a massive level, which trickles down across the web as a whole.
A reckoning is coming, of this, I am sure.
Wednesday April 24, 2024