> The work is to make the services better so they will attract more users. It is by delivering great services that Google attracts users.
This is less and less true. These last few years we have seen aggressive monetization push on most popular Google products, at the expense of product quality: search, maps and Youtube have all seen a significant increase of advertising that degrades the core product value. Mobile search & maps in particular have implemented deceptive techniques that make sponsored ads look like "native" results.
Try typing "car insurance in San Francisco" and tell me how many times you can see the little "ad" logo... Getting tinier and tinier by the day. Remember when sponsored search results used to have a blue background color?
The Maps app is also barely useable anymore because of how bloated it is. I have a basic Nexus phone from 2 years ago, and it takes ~10 seconds to fully load (!)
It refused to show me any ads at all. Perhaps because I live in a different locale. I did "Car insurance in <my city>". There were two ads below the fold. Everything above the fold was organic -- local insurance agencies and web links to the usual suspects (Esurance, etc.). I live in a large East Coast city for what it's worth.
For me from my laptop: 4 above the fold, 3 below the fold. Each ad also has more pixels of real-estate than an "organic" search result. More than 70% of the pixels I see on my screen before scrolling belong to ads!
This is less and less true. These last few years we have seen aggressive monetization push on most popular Google products, at the expense of product quality: search, maps and Youtube have all seen a significant increase of advertising that degrades the core product value. Mobile search & maps in particular have implemented deceptive techniques that make sponsored ads look like "native" results.
Try typing "car insurance in San Francisco" and tell me how many times you can see the little "ad" logo... Getting tinier and tinier by the day. Remember when sponsored search results used to have a blue background color?
The Maps app is also barely useable anymore because of how bloated it is. I have a basic Nexus phone from 2 years ago, and it takes ~10 seconds to fully load (!)