Hacker News: crowcroft

New comment by crowcroft in "The advertising cartel coming to your web browser"

crowcroft — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 22:28:41 +0000

The issue is that problem one is real, but not in a way that's beneficial to other advertising products.

Search, social and app store ads are over rated in that a lot of brands should probably decrease their investment, but things like programmatic display ads are absolutely not under rated. The correct number of dollars that should be spent on those placements is close to zero.

New comment by crowcroft in "Anthropic raises $65B in Series H funding at $965B post-money valuation"

crowcroft — Fri, 29 May 2026 10:45:46 +0000

I mean, they're not a public company, but there are still laws that exist...

New comment by crowcroft in "DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode"

crowcroft — Wed, 27 May 2026 23:29:20 +0000

Two issues with this.

- Search ad pricing is inelastic and auction based (supply goes down price goes up).

- A jump in traffic to DuckDuckGo does not mean Google is experiencing a decline in search volume. Number of queries per session has increased since launching AI Overviews.

New comment by crowcroft in "DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode"

crowcroft — Wed, 27 May 2026 23:27:13 +0000

Important context: In terms of total share of search a 28% lift for DuckDuckGo rounds down to zero.

The flip side is that multiple AI Search engines have overtaken and lapped DuckDuckGo many many times over in the past year or so.

New comment by crowcroft in "Ferrari Luce"

crowcroft — Tue, 26 May 2026 02:25:27 +0000

Cybertruck and Jaguar have not been sucessful.

Luxury car makers should look to handbags for inspiration. If Ferrari wants to expand the market and reach new customers they shouldn't be making something that looks like an upbadged BYD.

It's like if Hermes started making a Jansport backpack, absurd. Instead they sell lower cost, but still premium designs like the Picotin. The Lamborghini Urus might be one example.

New comment by crowcroft in "Bun support is now limited and deprecated"

crowcroft — Sat, 23 May 2026 10:51:31 +0000

Part of what I’m getting at is exactly your point that we used to think about what compiler to use and didn’t always blindly trust them.

If you have enough tests at what point does AI rewriting software in a different language become close enough to ‘deterministic’? Maybe never, maybe not.

New comment by crowcroft in "Bun support is now limited and deprecated"

crowcroft — Fri, 22 May 2026 23:10:06 +0000

This is why I require all my software to have bespoke compilers otherwise how can I trust the devs know what their code is actually running!?

New comment by crowcroft in "The IBM-ification of Google?"

crowcroft — Fri, 22 May 2026 01:27:23 +0000

This is pretty common across social media as well, surveyed sentiment towards it often negative while usage is high. I suspect it's because of the addictive quality.

New comment by crowcroft in "Google officially announces that ads will be included in AI Mode search results"

crowcroft — Thu, 21 May 2026 11:15:51 +0000

This never occurred to traditional search results so highly doubt they’ll start now.

New comment by crowcroft in "Intuit to lay off over 3k employees to refocus on AI"

crowcroft — Thu, 21 May 2026 02:07:38 +0000

I think it's a very common misconception among programmers that the law is a sort of natural language 'program' where you can consistently deduce that x input generate y output.

New comment by crowcroft in "Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE"

crowcroft — Thu, 21 May 2026 02:04:58 +0000

When some countries tell them 'You need to make sure the product is safe for children', or 'you can't let people under 16 on the platform' Meta stomps their feet, says it's impossible and/or bad for society and spends millions on campaigns to influence the public against the govt's position. In some cases going as far as threatening to leave the country.

So yes, they absolutely have a choice.

New comment by crowcroft in "Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools"

crowcroft — Mon, 18 May 2026 04:42:35 +0000

Who are the experts in the field, and who decides they're experts?

"More doctors smoke camels than any other cigarette".

New comment by crowcroft in "Tell NYT, Atlantic, USA Today to keep Wayback Machine"

crowcroft — Wed, 13 May 2026 03:29:14 +0000

Ok, but what about Meta and X etc.

New comment by crowcroft in "Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler"

crowcroft — Tue, 12 May 2026 00:44:57 +0000

I don't think the govt should be able to set rules that limit and control adult's freedoms with computers.

I don't think the govt should be able to set rules that limit and control children's freedoms with computers.

A child can't enter a nightclub or a liquor store. The closest digital equivalents are basically permanently available to them though.

New comment by crowcroft in "Agents for financial services and insurance"

crowcroft — Wed, 06 May 2026 01:06:41 +0000

Can't wait for Claude to submit fake tax records for me so that I can commit fraud legally.

New comment by crowcroft in "Xbox CEO ends Copilot AI development and overhauls leadership"

crowcroft — Wed, 06 May 2026 00:53:02 +0000

One turn away from 'Hey Copilot can you play my game for me'.

New comment by crowcroft in "Y Combinator's Stake in OpenAI (0.6%?)"

crowcroft — Tue, 05 May 2026 05:54:40 +0000

Are you sure?

New comment by crowcroft in "Y Combinator's Stake in OpenAI (0.6%?)"

crowcroft — Tue, 05 May 2026 03:36:32 +0000

What is 0.1% of a trillion? I think that's quite a large number still.

New comment by crowcroft in "GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay"

crowcroft — Mon, 04 May 2026 22:02:33 +0000

Mergers between public companies are almost entirely negative outcomes for shareholders and positive outcomes for the executive team.

Any possible 'synergy' is wiped out by.

- Having to pay a premium on the public market.

- Organisational complexities/moving slowly.

- Culture clashes and bad vibes between teams.

New comment by crowcroft in "Alphabet Announces First Quarter 2026 Results"

crowcroft — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 22:21:40 +0000

Your premise is absurd.

Search engines do exist, and search engines do allow tool calls. Try find an AI chat provider that doesn't connect web search to the agent.