Pseudo-monopolies are great at extinguishing imagination like that, and tbh Google search (as I understand its basic setup) was only as good as it was thanks to timing and few really good competitors.

  • UnlimitedRumination [he/him]@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    9 months ago

    I’ll tack on to what the other commenter said:

    • Cost: I considered myself a heavy searcher (software engineer and gamer) and have been surprised to see I have rarely exceeded even half of my allotted searches ($5/mo, 300 searches). I’m now reprogramming my brain to stop turning to alternatives when something should be easy to find because “I might use up all my queries”.
    • Better: apart from all of the cool features, and there are many, there’s also that it just “feels better”. I don’t know how to qualify that despite being a professional in that world. It’s kinda the opposite feeling that I had using Google over the last 5+ years where I wondered if I was getting dumber or if the internet (and Google) was absolutely full of garbage.

    It’s on the very short list of subscriptions I pay for right now despite having a very limited budget at the moment.

    • Elliott@lemmy.world
      2·
      9 months ago

      I think based on your response I’m going to jump in. What other subscriptions you think are worth it?

      • sloppy_diffuser@sh.itjust.works
        English
        1·
        9 months ago

        Not the OP but currently have:

        • Kagi - Search…
        • Proton - Email, Calendar, VPN, Pass (I just use for aliases). Now that I’ve upped my privacy knowledge I need to reevaluate. I do like their products though from a useability perspective. VPN supporting port forwarding is a bonus.
        • Backblaze B2 - off site backups using rclone and Round Sync (android rclone) to sync files
        • Mullvad VPN - Just got based on the XMR payment option and RAM only servers. Still deciding where I have a VPN included with Proton. I don’t like putting my eggs all in one basket though as I did with Google so its attractive to keep.
        • Bitwarden - Password manager. May switch to self hosted in the future.
        • Standard Notes - May switch to self hosted if I don’t lose any features I use.