From a UX and simplicity standpoint, in terms of what a typical user touches and experiences in an OS, I think XP SP2 was Windows at its peak. The UI seemed minimal, balanced and practical compared to the obtrusive mess that exists today.
Whatever the U.S. feels it needs to do in that regard can be accomplished with the current arrangement. It doesn’t need to invade or unilaterally annex or violate international law.
Anytime I see something like this my mind immediately thinks of the 'Full House' episode where Uncle Jesse keeps getting interrupted in his basement recording studio so he installs a red light at the top of the stairs. Red light = DND.
Watching other people use Google, the predominant method of searching for information involves a query followed by getting their answer from the AI summary that appears above any search results.
I'm not sure what impact this would be having on Adwords, but another commenter mentions that Google isn't hurting in the ad revenue department.
While TFA is anecdote, the author mentions maintaining their spend, being gifted adword budget, and getting lower returns so increasing spend.
This suggests adword revenue is up, conversion to adword 'dollar' balances is inflating those balances, so both return per dollar in is down and even more down is return per adword balance dollar.
It's a leading indicator that quarterly-return focused Google must be scrambling to fix right now - they inflated themselves out of Q4 2025 but 2026 is a question mark, or to parle some Boxton Matrix, is the cash cow dying and if so is the extension strategy ad injection in AI responses, product placement in your AI videos, background changes in your family snaps, etc.
How do people find your service? It seems like there are a million "send a fax" online services out there so it would be difficult to get in front of potential customers.
One thing I've had to explain to many confused friends who use reddit is that many of the people presenting themselves as domain experts in subreddits related to fields like law, accounting, plumbing, electrical, construction, etc. have absolutely no connection to or experience in whatever the field is.
I was interested. I does look like he just needs to update that. His personal blog says google, and ex-openAI. But I do feel like I have my tin foil on every time I come to HN now.
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