Google is dead. Where do we go now?

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

AdWords Decline for Small Businesses

  • Central anecdote: a small local entertainment business that depended on Google Ads for a decade now sees sharply falling leads despite similar or higher spend.
  • Others with small businesses report the same: cost per click up, conversions and lead quality down, to the point where campaigns no longer break even.
  • Some suggest more prosaic explanations: new competitors, poor campaign setup, search partner issues, or click fraud (including advice on log analysis and bot detection).

Is Google or Just Google Ads “Dead”?

  • Several point out the article is really about the search ads product, not the company or search as a whole.
  • Counter-evidence is cited: steadily rising Google ad revenue and search volumes; many larger advertisers still profitably spending seven figures monthly.
  • A common reconciliation: the “K‑shaped” ad economy—big, sophisticated or high-margin advertisers still do well; smaller, unsophisticated ones get priced out.

Shifts in Discovery: AI, Social, and Private Channels

  • Multiple commenters say they and their peers now use LLMs (ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.) for a large share of “search-like” tasks, especially comparisons and product research.
  • Others see most practical discovery moving to TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, or private groups (WhatsApp, Discord, iMessage), with traditional web search used less.
  • This weakens both SEO and PPC as predictable acquisition tools, especially for local or niche services.

Future of Ads in an AI World

  • Strong expectation that AI assistants will become the next ad surface: sponsored products blended into recommendations, pay-to-be-in-the-training-corpus, or prompt-targeted placements.
  • Some are optimistic this could be resisted (self-hosted models, ad blockers, regulation); most expect enshittification similar to search and social.

Impact on the Open Web and Search Ecosystem

  • Debate over what “killed” the open web: social media dominance, Google’s ad-driven design, or now AI summaries that reduce clicks and weaken publisher incentives.
  • Alternative search engines like Kagi are discussed: admired, but questioned on whether they can sustain their own index if the open web continues to shrink or wall itself off.

Alternative Marketing Approaches

  • Suggested channels: Meta (Facebook/Instagram) ads, YouTube pre-roll, Reddit (with caveats), local SEO/Maps, physical flyers and QR codes, direct relationships with planners and influencers, content and FAQ pages optimized for LLMs.
  • Some argue that in saturated, automated ad markets, many small businesses must fall back to word-of-mouth, repeat customers, and highly local tactics rather than mass platforms.