I understand your view. It’s just, I don’t see what other choice they have/had.
Search engine backends are remarkably scarce, and very expensive to run. And if you’re trying to build a front-end search engine today, you’re pretty much limited to:
Google (US)
Bing (US)
Baidu (China)
Sogou (China)
Mojeek (UK)
Yandex (Russia)
Between these choices, and before the US decided to become a fascist state, realistically which of these engines made more sense to pick? Being honest. US tech has always been seen as trustworthy and the golden standard for all things tech, until very recently.
Sure, they could also use metasearch engines, but those are remarkably consumer-UNfriendly and would require tweaking beyond the capabilities of the common tech company.
The only thing I cannot explain here is why they didn’t use Mojeek as their backend, and here we can only speculate…
Maybe it would have made Ecosia financially inviable if they had to pay for their API. Maybe they were concerned Mojeek’s finances were too uninspiring compared to the colossal capacities that Google/Microsoft have.
Or maybe they thought people didn’t want to have a radically different experience in results from what they are used to, and so decided to basically just give these two platforms a green makeover and promise to plant some trees. I don’t know.
My point is, I wouldn’t necessarily hold it against them. If anything, I am glad they agreed to join forces with Qwant in building a true EU-based search engine. Its sad that it took us so long to realise we need the basic infrastructure that other big economies have, but I suppose better late than ever.
I understand your view. It’s just, I don’t see what other choice they have/had.
Search engine backends are remarkably scarce, and very expensive to run. And if you’re trying to build a front-end search engine today, you’re pretty much limited to:
Between these choices, and before the US decided to become a fascist state, realistically which of these engines made more sense to pick? Being honest. US tech has always been seen as trustworthy and the golden standard for all things tech, until very recently.
Sure, they could also use metasearch engines, but those are remarkably consumer-UNfriendly and would require tweaking beyond the capabilities of the common tech company.
The only thing I cannot explain here is why they didn’t use Mojeek as their backend, and here we can only speculate…
Maybe it would have made Ecosia financially inviable if they had to pay for their API. Maybe they were concerned Mojeek’s finances were too uninspiring compared to the colossal capacities that Google/Microsoft have.
Or maybe they thought people didn’t want to have a radically different experience in results from what they are used to, and so decided to basically just give these two platforms a green makeover and promise to plant some trees. I don’t know.
My point is, I wouldn’t necessarily hold it against them. If anything, I am glad they agreed to join forces with Qwant in building a true EU-based search engine. Its sad that it took us so long to realise we need the basic infrastructure that other big economies have, but I suppose better late than ever.
I’m optimistic.
I share your optimism. I’d love to see Ecosia + Qwant (or whoever, really) succeed.