When you start entering text into Google search, it adds autocomplete suggestions as to what you might have wanted to ask. These can be very entertaining but also quite educational because you are seeing things other people have actually asked Google. At least I assume it works on previous searches. It could also take into account my own advertising or political preferences, but I don’t want to go down that rabit hole. For the purposes of this blog, lets say the most asked questions are displayed as suggestions.
If you search for software or services or many other topics, you will almost always see the word “free” appear as one of the suggestions. Type Photoshop and you’ll see people searched for Photoshop free. Previous popular searches always include the word free. People who still have hope and optimism in their hearts apparently search for free versions of anything and everything. Free back massage, free meal on my birthday, free food. It’s a suggested option on almost every search.
People search for free dentistry or free home repair. Free car insurance. I do it too. It makes sense to at least TRY and see if free options exist before having to pay for everything. There actually are a lot of free things offered on the Internet. At least there used to be. Less every year. Somebody was first to offer free trials. Somebody was first to offer free apps with in app purchases. Somebody was first to start charging for everything annually, and then monthly and now weekly. I hate that person, whoever it was.
I understand. Developers need to get paid. The saddest part of this quest for the free is that it has caused the search engine algorythm to adapt, as it is designed to do. Since people were looking for free, that keyword became the most valuable word to include on your site, even if you don’t offer anything free. This is frustrating because it is an early sign that the Internet is breaking. It’s much harder today to find what you want online than it was in the days before people started hiring very costly SEO (Search Engine Optomization) experts and making their websites appear well in the search engines. Quality is less important than good SEO.
Free becomes so over-used, it no longer means free. Hacks like “free to join” or “sign up for free” take over and you can no longer find anything actually free. I understand how and why this happened, but it makes me sad because so often my needs for software is experimental. Short term interest. With a limited attention span and budget, I can’t afford to invest in everything, knowing I probably won’t care about it next week.
Free trials exist but their practicality is focused on seeing if the software sucks or suits your needs rather than being functional beyond a few uses. Very few free program trials are actually useable.
I like to play with discoveries. My interest comes and go and I want to try new things. This week I’m playing with lip-sync tools but next week I may be on to something else. If I had to buy everything, I’d be paying thousands of dollars s month…or a year. As it is, I was happy to find a few tools to play with for $8 or $9 a month… In Canada that means $15 and I bought three already this month. I’ll go without food later in the month.
We are now on the edge of a new system that may make it even harder to find things you’re interested in online. CHAT GPT and other AI chat tools are answering inquiries in a more natural way. Instead of searching through two dizen companies on Google, you simply ask; Hey AI. Who has the best lipsync software and it tells you. I don’t know how it gains this information, but I believe it will be a death to many small businessess that rely on Google search, espcecially locally.
Sometimes I miss the yellow pages… They were FREE.
I offer no solutions. Just a rant. Life changes and old people like me grunt and complain. That’s just the way it is.
