searching for a way to search for a way
Sep. 2nd, 2024 11:25 amto search for shoes in the hallway. The last is not actually difficult, just untidy. I'm looking for one of those racks to hold shoes by the door. I like leaving my slippers there when I'm out, and leaving my boots and shoes there the rest of the time. The old one is falling apart, and I'd like one that's as narrow as possible. The current one is 6-shoes wide and 2 shoes high, and never full. I'd like something 4-shoes wide and 3 shoes high. Or 2-shoes wide and stackable.
Online vendors sell a great many shoe racks of the type I already have. Some (perhaps most!) of them are not falling apart. But once I start searching with modifiers...gevalt. I'm not sure how much of the problem is the search engine AI and how much is that "shoe rack" and "narrow" and "stackable" are not usefully descriptive in this space.
Which drives me to what we used to call the lazyweb. It doesn't feel lazy to ask you. It feels safer to interact with you than to deal with google or other search engines that will push all kinds of shoe racks at me to the ending of the world. (It feels like this even though I already asked google and duck duck go, though not yet facebook even though fb includes more local people who might say "oh, I have one in my attic!")
ETA: I'd be perfectly happy to find a store that sold racks of this non-standard size, and give them my money. The problem is that the size is non-standard, and most stores will say either "would you like one of these standard sizes?" or "look at our AI-searchable catalog."
Online vendors sell a great many shoe racks of the type I already have. Some (perhaps most!) of them are not falling apart. But once I start searching with modifiers...gevalt. I'm not sure how much of the problem is the search engine AI and how much is that "shoe rack" and "narrow" and "stackable" are not usefully descriptive in this space.
Which drives me to what we used to call the lazyweb. It doesn't feel lazy to ask you. It feels safer to interact with you than to deal with google or other search engines that will push all kinds of shoe racks at me to the ending of the world. (It feels like this even though I already asked google and duck duck go, though not yet facebook even though fb includes more local people who might say "oh, I have one in my attic!")
ETA: I'd be perfectly happy to find a store that sold racks of this non-standard size, and give them my money. The problem is that the size is non-standard, and most stores will say either "would you like one of these standard sizes?" or "look at our AI-searchable catalog."