In an interesting Wall Street Journal interview today, Google's Chief Economist Hal Varian claims that it's "easy to switch" search engine. I disagree. People don't (often) switch search engine for the same reason they don't (often) switch newspaper or political party - they are paying with their loyalty for the luxury of (rational) ignorance.
From the WSJ interview:
"WSJ: Is Google an example of a "winner take all" market, where "network effects" make it more valuable as it gets more users?
Varian: I don't think [search] is a winner take all market at all,
because it's so easy to switch. You type a different URL into your
browser. For eBay, the buyers want to go where there are the most
sellers are and the sellers want to go where the buyers are. [In
search] the advertisers want to be where the most users are [but] the
users don't want to be where there are the most advertisers."
Although search doesn't enjoy the same market effect as eBay* it isn't at all trivial to type a new search URL into your browser (and not because of the installed search bar or the extensions, which ultimately impose switching costs which are trivial). The switching costs are substantial, just non-obvious.
In theory, it should be very easy for people to switch newspapers or even political parties as switch search engine...but historically they switch search engine only once, as they develop the online confidence/experience to abandon their default ISP/browser engine for Google; they very seldom do switch newspaper; and the last time we saw a significant switch in political allegiance in Britain was the effectively complete abandonment of the Liberal party for Labour after the first world war. (With the possible exception of Wallace in 1968, modern attempts to create a significant political shift in the US have produced only laughable results).
What for the sake of shorthand we call "trust" in media is a rational consumer choice of an apparently reliable source that will do the hard labour of validation for us. People like to appear consistent to both themselves and others (see as ever Cialdini's Influence for the argument) and it isn't rational for them to laboriously check sources themselves every time they want some information. Hence (if you'll forgive some simplification) "trust" in media and especially in a particular newspaper; hence minimal instances of people switching away again from Google; hence this relatively targeted form of rational ignorance that leads people to, quite reasonably, engage as infrequently as possible in the disruptive process of deciding what source of information to trust and then sticking with it.
(Which might lead us to ask the obvious follow-up question - why Google in particular? For which I continue to answer that Google has pulled a brilliant PR trick in making us think of a probabilistic system, at which our minds should naturally recoil, as a source of definitive authority. More on this argument here, or in its original framing by Chris Anderson here.)
HT: Econlog
*Except insofar as paid search results are content - which, since they really do provide a valuable set of additional links for users, they must be, making it possible that searchers will concentrate where the most (relevant) advertisers are
Comments