this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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Microsoft was caught testing way too many ads on its Bing Search results page. I saw 9 ads and only two organic/free listings on the page for a query on [garage door repair].

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[–] [email protected] 75 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Next up they might test making the whole first page for ads, and the pages after that for search results.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Hell, why even have organic search results at all? Just rank results by how much each site owner is willing to ~~bribe~~ pay. A protection racket for the 21st century.

"That's a nice website you've got there. It'd be a shame if it got no visitors."

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Good idea, you now quality to mod r/anarchocapitapism

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

While I don't mind laissez-faire in principle, that not my favorite anarcho-flavor and I don't wanna :)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I am empathetic to wanting to be left alone. I am disturbed by their desire to tear down systems that protect others out of some a historic notion that we would be better off with out them

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Yup. I consider myself pretty laissez faire, but I too have my limits, which are way before I get within shouting distance of ancaps. I believe in Piguovian taxes and lean a bit Georgist for a tax baseline, which is already pretty far from ancapistan.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

I do like that Georgists are grounded in reality and try to address observed issues.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

This is Bing we're talking about, the website owner may not even notice.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

well you'd think at some point people would stop using their bullshit search engine.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 1 points 2 weeks ago

DDG works pretty well and is based on Bing.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 weeks ago

Gross but also... kinda curious from an A/B testing perspective to know when the user drop off happens. Kind of like, what's the pain threshold before someone stops using shitty software. The answer really should be zero but the average user... ugh, it's probably fucking 8 or 9 and we should be ashamed.

Too bad is Bing so the sample size is too small for any meaningful results.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 weeks ago

I’m sure both people who use Bing are furious

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Do people actually use Bing??? Apart from the ms reward

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 weeks ago

I use its image search to study human anatomy.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 5 points 2 weeks ago

Yup! It provides the results for DuckDuckGo.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It's a lot better nowadays than Google, so I do, yeah.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

duckduckgo is mostly based on bing results so you could try that too.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago

What a waste of bandwidth, energy and time.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I started using and paying for Kagi. Fuck Google and Microsoft.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

I'd love to use Kagi but I'm too poor for their pro subscription (and I use too many search queries)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

I do, too, and I hope they increase their own search index to reduce the dependency on Google/Microsoft. I love the great search experience but I hate that I'm (indirectly) giving those companies my money.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago

i feel bad for all the 10 bing users

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

This is what Google and Amazon already do, why are they singling out Bing?

Use an advertisement blocker on either site and the entire experience seems foreign.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

Two of the ads are for the same company, and that company is also one of the two organic results.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Way to confuse adblock users

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Satya the creep testing boundaries