Comment by anamexis
I guess if the target audience is people who already know what it is?
I guess if the target audience is people who already know what it is?
That's an absurd comparison.
At the time there were dozens of search engines and new ones every day. Everybody knew what search engines were, and what they offered. Google did not invent the form field -> SRP pattern; people were already used to that. Google was able to rise above the field because 1. yes the homepage was nice, but more importantly 2. the results were so much better than competitors.
I don't understand the comparison to SQLite online because what are the well-known competitors, and what is it even trying to do?
Not even going to touch the ChatGPT comparison.
This is accurate. Back then nobody went to google and was confused when it was just an input box. They went there already knowing it was a search engine and that search engines needed input. They came back because the results were so good (relative to competitors).
The clean interface just stood out as the other competitors at the time we're bogged down by ads. So a quick loading page in a time of slow internet connections, was a very nice user-centric feature.
Devils advocate: when Google launched it was just a blank form field.
Similar to ChatGPT.
But those who knew what it is, their usage is huge.