egomaniac - 6:42 pm on Aug 29, 2002 (gmt 0)

PageRank is like Capitalism. Those with the capital invest in your site by linking to you if they think that your site is a good investment of their capital. If your site is not a good investment, then you will attract very little investment capital (links).

Google is a marketplace in that it identifies what the larger numbers of website owners deem to be of value. If a lot of people think something is of value, then it probably is to many poeple (though not to everyone). Is this the only way to identify value? No. Will some sites of value be missed by this approach? Sure. PageRank works fine for me. I can find what I want fast when I need to. And on the few occasions when I don't, I know how to dig deeper.

The Have-nots of the world will always complain about what they Have-not, whether its PageRank or money.. If you want something, study and learn how to get it. Those who would regulate others so that they can then Have-more just haven't exercised their brain enough to figure out how to Have-more.

>"Eventually, a FAST-type engine should be administered by a consortium of librarians who are protected civil servants of a world government."

I too couldn't disagree with this more Googleguy. Google is popular because it works well. And it will continue to be popular unless or until someone else figures out a better way to run a search engine that gives people what they want. If Google ever slacks off and this happens, then a new player will emerge as it should. The market works in business and in search. If you don't like your results, figure out how to make them better. There's always a way.