Forget the suit against Google’s Adtech , I want search that works
DoJ against Alphabet, FTW with a new word, and Marcus on AI & programmer productivity. Still finding my way around Substack but an update on my writing direction
This week’s Tonic is so late that Gin may be a welcome addition.
The Headliner: DoJ’s second suit focused on advertising
But for most people it is probably confusing
The Department of Justice’s second suit against Google is focused on their domination of online advertising, especially forcing everything through their advertising technologies (adtech). We all know that advertising is littering up each and every Google search to no good ends as users, like showing Yelp and other often unknown platform ratings for a restaurant that you want to go to, when you just want to check the restaurant’s contact page on their website to see their hours. Well because of this suit we now know why.
The mathematical complexity behind how the instantaneous advertising auction system works is breath-taking. Google’s star witness, “Milgrom’s specialty is using complex mathematics and, more recently, software algorithms, to create the right incentives to make the most complicated auctions go smoothly” Interesting interchange between the judge and Milgrom which bodes well for Google.
Does it bode well for us though. Google lost the first suit - that their search engine was monopolistic - but legal appeals will go on indefinitely. The concern of many is that over the past 10 years the reliability, accuracy and mostly relevance of Google’s searches has been declining. I rarely use it anymore, trying my luck with Quant, Duck Duck Go, even Bing. I long for the days of AltaVista where I could use simple boolean to better focus the searches.
But in those days heady early days search was free AND unprofitable. Google decided to keep search free but make money on advertising. Now there are many different types of advertising all mixed up in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) to keep you confused and clicking on ads. But it is free and now enormously profitable.
As an experiment I started using Perplexity, an AI driven search engine, about two months ago. It usually gives me the answers I want quickly without sorting through Google search riffraff. It is free for a modest number of searches but the real meal deal is $25 per month.
This summarizes societal issues across so many technology products very crisply: free and you are bombarded with ads and/or your personal data is monetized OR paying a modest recurring amount to be completely free of internet rubbish. Unfortunately too many people go with free. Full disclosure: I haven’t yet ponied up the $25 monthly fee.
What’s New in My World
A maturing juvenile buck took up residence at our place, sleeping under our deck and sitting gracefully on the grassy knoll right next to our deck door. Not that grassy knoll!
FTW: Pivot
The George Orwell Say What You Mean Section
The background for the Forget This Word department is found here. Pivot is an example of a decent word definitionally that has been overused and overextended ad nauseam. Look up Pivot and the definitions centre on making a change - to a product or service, a strategy or policy, or a direction - that is normally substantial.
But pivoting is now everywhere, as if people have forgotten all others words for change, including change. Originally pivoting was something positive. Like the firm that developed Slack made it for internal communications as they were building a video game. They pivoted completely when they realized there was way more demand and money in the communications tool than the game.
There are any number of organizations, groups and publications now called Pivot. I’m sure a few have been called Pivot for some time, but I suspect the rest are jumping onboard the positive feelings associated with this word. The Canadian CPA’s magazine, for instance, is called Pivot. Now I don’t know about you, but I want my accountant to be steadfast and sure on checking my books and auditing transactions. No pivoting desired at all.
Pivot can now also have a more negative meaning (mirroring another overused word Walkback) as in the headline “Justin Trudeau’s Pivot to the Right on Immigration” written by a left wing group.
As to Pivot’s overuse I did a 5 minute search through Google News and got the following: Genetech’s pivot on oncology drugs (actually they are shutting the oncology unit down so that isn’t a pivot), Putin pivoted to China (thought he was already quite chummy with them), the Washington Commanders must pivot as they are better than expected (maybe they meant a pivot foot in basketball), and how to pivot as a new immigrant.
My favourite is this string of too precious words: You can learn to pivot at any age in the entrepreneurial ecosystem at our Level Up event. This is what happens when PR and marketing dominate: nearly nonsensical communications.
My Direction on Substack
I have been spending considerable time in the past couple of months determining what topics I want to write about and which ones I want to leave alone. I want to leverage my background but stretch in new directions. Most of all I want to love writing and write about what I love.
I will be converting over to a publication format in the next week or two. I’m interested in a few different things I will have 3 different publications all under one banner. This gives people the option to subscribing to what is most pertinent to them. Monday Morning Tonic was a format that was easy to start with to get me writing each week. Not sure yet of its eventual fate. So coming soon:
AI hasn’t completely reinvented the productivity of coding
Data, though, is where hype goes to die
Gary Marcus (whose Substack I highly recommend) is a long time AI researcher and thought leader who is the exuberant antidote to AI overkill. The subtitle is right from his blog on what various people have empirically found about the real effect of AI on programmer productivity. Coles notes: some limited improvements along with some difficulties it creates. None of these mammoth order of magnitude productivity benefits.
But let’s face it the hype is mostly coming from people who are trying to sell you something, either directly (book, course, mentoring, product) or through marketing affiliate relationships (more on these in an upcoming blog). My LinkedIn account is replete with this same type of hype applied to every possible business endeavour. I’m sure they help - I use a few AI tools - but no explosive and breathtaking productivity change.
It reminds me of the hype during the pandemic about Work From Home (WFH). All sorts of “surveys” purportedly demonstrated that everyone was loving it and they were more productive and effective. I was very suspicious of these claims, as most were from the perspective of more junior workers who loved being at home. Now that many deeper, more meaningful research has been conducted we have seen that WFH means often putting in more hours to do the same work, and that for many types of group work, productivity is less and it often takes longer to get the outcomes right.
Keen on getting feedback so if you have time or are so inclined: