But you go to IKEA for IKEA and get IKEA. With the phone stores or search engines you go to them for $result and you get $something_else.

It's similar but not quite the same. Even the parallel with the physical world fails us here, IKEA can't put everyone's desired product at the entrance. Google can.

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buellerbueller 2 hours ago | parent [-]

When I go to IKEA for a desk chair, I have to walk though many other unrelated things to see the desk chairs. The difference is that IKEA sells IKEA only.

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reaperducer 33 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

When I go to IKEA for a desk chair, I have to walk though many other unrelated things to see the desk chairs. The difference is that IKEA sells IKEA only.

This is the sort of thing that makes people on HN start screaming "ZOMG! Walled garden!!!!11!!eleventy!1"

	▲	fluoridation 17 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I mean, that's not what a walled garden is. A walled garden would be if IKEA sold houses that you can only put IKEA furniture in.

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close04 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> I have to walk though many other unrelated things to see the desk chairs

That's what I was trying to say earlier with the limitations of the physical world. IKEA implements a lot of psychological tricks to get your eyeballs on as many products as they can but at the end of the day they can have only so many corridors and entrances to the store. You want a chair, I want a pillow, someone else wants a flower pot. Sooner or later someone will need to walk a bit to get to what they want, IKEA can't put everything right at the entrance.

But Google can put my desired result right at the top, at the entrance. It's the advantage of digital, it can be changed to suit each individual user. As it turns out, Google made it only their advantage.