Gabriel Weinberg's Substack

About Gabriel Weinberg's Substack

DuckDuckGo founder. Co-author, Super Thinking. Co-author, Traction. gabrielweinberg.com (https://gabrielweinberg.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Gabriel Weinberg

Category

news · technology

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

27 Apr 2025

Latest episode

23 Jul 2026

Latest episodes

40 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   23 Jul 2026

   Resolving the privacy paradox

   The so-called “privacy paradox” states that people say they value their privacy while acting in ways that don't reflect this stated preference, such as using services that collect and monetize their data. DuckDuckGo is often held out as an example in this way: DuckDuckGo has small search marketshare relative to Google; therefore, people have a revealed preference that they really don’t value their privacy. I believe there are two flaws with this view that I’ll expand on below: * DuckDuckGo is a bad example because of particulars in the search market; Apple’s “Allow App to Track” dialog (depicted below) is a much better example that in fact shows a clear revealed preference for privacy. * People sit on a continuum of privacy preferences, such that it is way too simplistic to imply nearly everyone is on one side or the other. Gross generalizations about privacy should be avoided. The latest U.S. data from the Business of Apps (https://www.businessofapps.com/data/att-opt-in-rates/) shows an opt-in (allow tracking) rate on Apple’s dialog of 25%, indicating a 75% strong revealed preference for privacy. This 25% allow-tracking rate is higher than the original 5-10% rates reported when the dialog first came out because both users have had years to get used to it and apps have had years to change their UIs around. Apps now often present users with the best reasons to allow tracking, usually presented right before users see the dialog, and they can customize the explanation text in the dialog itself (see below for examples). That is, I don’t think you can legitimately say anymore that people don’t understand the dialog or the privacy tradeoffs involved; the 25% steady state is the real preference. But, how do you reconcile this 75% choice for privacy with DuckDuckGo’s 3% search marketshare? The short version is most people are actually still unaware of DuckDuckGo and, for those that are and want to make the switch, many still find it difficult or impossible to do so across all platforms and devices because, unlike with the Apple one-click dialog, users are not universally presented with a similarly clear one-click search choice screen. To unpack that a bit more, here’s the awareness and usage of DuckDuckGo data for the American public, based on our latest commissioned brand study: * 13% current DuckDuckGo users * 9% past DuckDuckGo users * 30% aided privacy awareness (can identify DuckDuckGo as offering online privacy services from a list of companies) * 2% unaided privacy awareness (can name DuckDuckGo as a company offering online privacy services when asked to name companies in this category they can recall) These numbers show our marketshare substantially depressed in a number of ways. First, we have 3% search marketshare in the U.S., but another 10 percentage points of users self-identifying as current DuckDuckGo users. We also ask about particular usage and find that’s because most DuckDuckGo users are either not full-time users or not full-time users on all their devices, or both. Reasons vary but are a combination of: * Didn’t know we had products (or could switch) on all platforms * Couldn’t figure out how to switch on all platforms (or thought it was too difficult being so many steps) * Technically they can’t fully switch on all platforms (like on Android) * They like to multi-home * Perceived quality issues * No choice was ever given to them (Google locking up all the defaults) * New devices reverting (back to those defaults) * Other Google monopoly tactics (like confusing switch-back notices on Chrome (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/amaehl_change-back-to-google-search-this-is-what-share-7346468412736303104-kEUR/)). * Breaking decade-long habits is just hard Second, there is the 9% of past DuckDuckGo users who are no longer active users for all the same reasons, giving up on us after some period of time. We’ve been a search engine for almost 18 years. We’ve gotten a lot better over time, but maybe we weren’t good enough for them when they tried us out last, or they couldn’t overcome Google’s tactics, etc. etc. (If you’re in this group by the way, please consider giving us another shot!) And third, awareness of who we are and what we do is still very low. 2% unaided privacy awareness is tiny. 30% aided privacy awareness is OK but that means people had to be presented with the name DuckDuckGo, and even then not all of them could articulate that we even run a private search engine, just that we have something to do with privacy. Let alone the fact that awareness of Google’s many privacy issues also isn’t that high. In other words, if you’re going to make a revealed preference argument about privacy, it is silly to anchor on our search marketshare (with all the enumerated issues above) and ignore Apple’s dialog since the latter is a much, much cleaner articulation of a privacy choice actually presented directly to users. A more equivalent search engine test would be if Google launched a similarly required one-click dialog box asking if people would like Google to continue tracking them or not. I would suppose Google would get similar allow-tracking rates as apps get on Apple’s platform, with a solid majority choosing privacy. These nuances expose a major flaw that revealed-preference arguments often have: Any preference is situationally specific, depending on a variety of factors, such as how a choice is presented, if a choice is proactively presented at all, the risks/tradeoffs involved, and switching costs (perceived and real). The more proactive and clear the choice, the more it will capture real preferences, which is why the Apple dialog is particularly revealing. Now, on top of all this, the tech press tends to downplay or outright ignore preference groups that constitute a minority percentage, even if that group is actually quite large, say 20% of the population. 20% amounts to about 50 million U.S. adults and is also about the proportion that are either current or past DuckDuckGo users. If 80% use x, that often translates to “nearly everybody uses x” with the remaining people considered niche. For pervasive services like search, that’s quite a niche! Most any product would love tens of millions of users. Taken together with the revealed preference issue, the tech press therefore routinely understates the actual preference for privacy in general, and the interest in DuckDuckGo products in particular. Due to Big Tech monopolies, I continue to believe there is large, pent up demand for privacy services online, which Apple’s dialog suggests. Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts or get the audio version (https://gabrielweinberg.com/p/podcast). This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gabrielweinberg.com (https://gabrielweinberg.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

2. 

   13 Jun 2026

   No, everyone is not using AI for everything.

   Last year around this time The New York Times Magazine ran an A.I. issue with an introduction titled “Everyone Is Using A.I. for Everything. Is That Bad? (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/magazine/using-ai-hard-fork.html)” It’s an edited transcript from the Hard Fork podcast (https://www.nytimes.com/column/hard-fork), which I think assumes two things are true that are turning out to be false. * Once you’ve tried AI, you use it “for everything.” No, in fact most people who’ve tried it are just occasional AI users. * AI has gotten so good that despite any misgivings, “everyone is using A.I.” No, in fact large chunks of the population aren’t using AI at all. (It isn’t really strictly defined in the article, but I’m taking AI to mean generative AI accessible via a chat interface.) “Everyone is using AI for everything” is actually “Some people are using AI for some things” Take Gen Z, where AI awareness is the highest (https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2026/02/24/how-teens-use-and-view-ai/): in the last year, even though AI has supposedly gotten a lot better, Gen Z AI adoption has all but stalled, with a meaningful percentage of the Gen Z population still using AI rarely, if at all. Here’s Gallup’s (https://news.gallup.com/poll/708224/gen-adoption-steady-skepticism-climbs.aspx)year-over-year (2025/2026) breakdown: * 79/81% use AI at least rarely * 41/42% are anxious about AI * 32/31% use AI only monthly/every few months * 22/31% are angry about AI * 21/19% never use AI This tracks with Microsoft’s new United States AI Diffusion site (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/dmc/topics/ai-economy-institute/reports/us-ai-adoption-2026-q1/), based on “anonymized, aggregated Microsoft telemetry.” Their associated blog (https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2026/05/28/united-states-ai-adoption-shows-steady-growth-but-distribution-remains-uneven/) reports “more than 30 percent of the US working-age population is using AI [meaning about 70% isn’t], an increase of 3 percentage points from the end of 2025.” The underlying academic paper (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/AI-Diffusion-US-Technical-Report.pdf) specifies that usage is defined as “engagement with major AI services including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude, Microsoft Copilot, and others….with at least 90 minutes of usage time in a given month.” The Microsoft data is brand new, and it mirrors another usage study from Datos (https://sparktoro.com/blog/new-research-20-of-americans-use-ai-tools-10x-month-but-growth-is-slowing-and-traditional-search-hasnt-dipped/) from last year, also based on real-world usage data. The Datos study found similarly that, as of last June, only 21% of desktop devices visited “AI Tools” 10 or more times a month, 62% visited 0 times, and the remaining 17% in between. Back on the survey side, a recent Searchlight Institute study (https://www.searchlightinstitute.org/research/americans-have-mixed-views-of-ai-and-an-appetite-for-regulation/) found “58% report using or trying AI, specifically tools like ChatGPT or Claude, divided evenly between fairly regular users (30% use at least a few times a month) [roughly matching the Microsoft/Datos data] and more infrequent users (29% have used AI, but only once a month or less).” And finally a new survey from The Argument (https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/the-biggest-issue-in-american-politics?publication_id=5247799&post_id=201400614&isFreemail=false&r=4e5x7&triedRedirect=true) finds “most Americans use AI once a week or less.” All of this triangulates to AI use in America at approximately one third actively using AI, one third occasionally using AI, and one third never using AI, with some movement depending on how you define those terms. In any case, this split is a far cry from “everyone is using AI for everything;” it’s much closer to “some people are using AI for some things.” AI use also hasn’t shifted that much in the past six months to a year. In fact, the only thing that has substantially changed is negative sentiment about AI has gone significantly up, for example the Gallup’s Gen Z poll reporting anger about AI jumping about 40% relative year over year. Many people are holding back AI use because of real AI concerns and lack of perceived AI value I think it is a reasonable conclusion to draw from all of this data that a significant percentage of the population is actively limiting their AI usage. The Searchlight study examines a big reason why: real concerns people have with AI. The top three concerns found are “AI will replace jobs and cause unemployment” (42%), "AI will violate people’s privacy” (35%), and “AI will spread misinformation and lies” (33%). This sentiment also matches a strong desire for safety/privacy AI regulation. A solid majority thinks “the government should prioritize creating safety/privacy rules for AI, even if that means the U.S. develops AI more slowly than countries like China.” Another big reason is skepticism in AI usefulness. SearchLight asked about a range of technologies and to say “whether you believe the overall impact of each technology on society is positive or negative.” AI only has an +8% net positive rating right now, right next to +7% for social media, which were only greater than crypto at -17%. Meanwhile cell phones, the internet, and solar energy are at +68%, +67%, and +65%, respectively. The Argument study broke this down further, asking about specific societal benefits from AI, finding broad skepticism and concluding “people aren’t really buying the bullish case for AI that CEOs and boosters alike are selling. In other words, the skepticism about AI’s effects is real and deep-running. And given how many people use it daily, this is not just an ill-informed set of opinions on something respondents have never seen before (like tariffs were before 2025).” It is possible for people to have one view at a societal level and then act differently at an individual level, but that does not seem to be what we’re seeing here. The plurality occasional usage and large percentage of complete avoidance speaks to the fact that a lot of people seemingly aren’t yet finding enough individual value net of their concerns to justify daily or even weekly usage. The gap in media narrative (that everyone is using AI for everything) relative to the reality (that some people are using AI for some things) perhaps reflects a bubble around early-adopting knowledge workers that includes much of the tech press (and me for that matter, though I’m trying really hard to stay connected to reality). It’s a mistake for companies, pundits, and policy makers to ignore how people are really feeling and acting about AI. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows. It’s also clearly not binary (all use or no use), but instead a continuum of AI opinions and use, with a lot of people in the middle. The meat of it all I think there is an apt analogy to be made here to preferences around meat consumption. Another thing that seems to be everywhere right now is protein. Telling us how important protein is in our diet is analogous to telling us how useful AI is for productivity. And, meat being a primary source of protein is analogous to AI chat tools being a primary source of generative AI. And yet here’s how Americans break down in terms of their meat consumption preferences, based on a handful of U.S. studies from this decade: * 95% eat meat (Gallup (https://news.gallup.com/poll/510038/identify-vegetarian-vegan.aspx), 2023) * 70% report reducing red meat consumption (Rutgers (https://www.rutgers.edu/news/why-health-and-price-not-sustainability-drive-us-meat-consumption-choices), 2024) * 30% eat (all) meat only rarely/occasionally (Gallup (https://news.gallup.com/poll/282779/nearly-one-four-cut-back-eating-meat.aspx), 2020) * 12% don’t eat red meat (Nature (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-026-06619-z), 2026) * 4% don’t eat any meat, that is are vegetarian (Gallup (https://news.gallup.com/poll/510038/identify-vegetarian-vegan.aspx), 2023) * 1% don’t eat any animal products, that is are vegan (Gallup (https://news.gallup.com/poll/510038/identify-vegetarian-vegan.aspx), 2023) That is, not everyone eats meat, a majority actively curbs their consumption of red meat, and a significant percentage don’t eat it at all. Different people have different (not mutually exclusive) reasons for limiting their meat consumption, including health, cost, environment, and ethics. Those are all also primary concerns for AI consumption! The analogy also highlights market opportunities to appeal to people across the continuum, speaking to their feelings on AI and addressing their particular AI concerns. For example, we (at DuckDuckGo) make all AI features optional and one of those features, duck.ai (https://duck.ai), is a private chatbot alternative that helps address AI privacy concerns. To extend the analogy in this way, we’re a restaurant with a variety of options on the menu, from healthy meat dishes (private AI) to vegetarian (turn down AI) to vegan dishes (turn off AI), which most eaters across the spectrum can appreciate. Does this mean about one third of the population is bound to use AI only rarely/occasionally forever? No. Unlike with meat, the AI technology landscape is changing so rapidly that it is very unclear both where AI products and regulations will end up. Product evolution could make AI more useful to the average person, and regulations could reduce concerns. However, we can say that, as of right now, a meaningful percentage of the population has tried the current state of AI and has decided to actively limit their use of it. Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts or get the audio version (https://gabrielweinberg.com/p/podcast). This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gabrielweinberg.com (https://gabrielweinberg.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

3. 

   7 Jun 2026

   A "patchwork" of AI laws is a feature, not a bug

   Consider a few of the big AI risks: violating privacy, taking jobs, and destroying the world. Here’s what Sam Altman (CEO, OpenAI) and Dario Amodei (CEO, Anthropic) have to say about each, representing the two largest AI companies. On AI Violating Privacy * Sam (https://www.techlawcrossroads.com/2025/07/sam-altmans-warning-everything-you-tell-chatgpt-could-end-up-being-used-against-you/): If you go talk to ChatGPT about your most sensitive stuff, and then there's a lawsuit or whatever, we could be required to produce that. * Dario (https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/machines-of-loving-grace): AI seems likely to enable much better propaganda and surveillance, both major tools in the autocrat's toolkit. On AI Taking Jobs * Sam (https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/sam-altman-believes-ai-will-change-world-and-everything-else): AI is going to eliminate a lot of current jobs, and there will be classes of jobs that totally go away. * Dario (https://www.windowscentral.com/artificial-intelligence/anthropic-ceo-warns-25-percent-chance-ai-threatens-job-losses): AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs—and spike unemployment to 10-20% in the next one to five years. On AI Destroying the World * Sam (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PTzsEQXkCfig9A6AS/transcript-of-sam-altman-s-interview-touching-on-ai-safety): And the bad case—and I think this is important to say—is like lights out for all of us. * Dario (https://www.obsolete.pub/p/a-compilation-of-tech-executives): My chance that something goes really quite catastrophically wrong on the scale of human civilization might be somewhere between 10 to 25%. So, the leaders of AI think there is a decent chance it will destroy the world, are pretty sure it is going to wipe out lots of jobs, and are absolutely sure it is violating our privacy and has the potential to enable much more mass surveillance. We need government to help manage these risks, let alone all the other concerns surrounding AI like data centers, child safety, etc. There is currently a debate whether Congress should prevent states from regulating certain AI risks. For example, the recently introduced Great American AI Act (https://obernolte.house.gov/media/press-releases/obernolte-trahan-release-discussion-draft-great-american-ai-act) preempts (stops) states for three years from “regulating the development of any artificial intelligence model” (from § 121 in the full text (https://obernolte.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/obernolte.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/the-great-american-ai-act-discussion-draft-website-compressed-compressed.pdf) and explanatory text (https://obernolte.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/obernolte.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/gaaia-discussion-draft-section-by-section-website.pdf)). It would be one thing if Congress was super effective, but it’s just not, especially with regard to tech regulation. Case in point, Congress has failed to pass a general privacy law for the entire life of the Internet! In fact, aside from narrow, reactive measures like the TAKE IT DOWN Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TAKE_IT_DOWN_Act), Congress has failed to pass any comprehensive tech regulation for a generation. Do we really think that it is going to start now and sufficiently deal with the myriad of AI risks? NO. Their lack of progress to date is more than enough evidence. Meanwhile, states have already been moving to regulate these risks. I also don’t buy the criticism leveled against these state laws that they are somehow slowing down innovation via costly compliance, particularly in our AI race against China. The state laws getting the most pushback, like California's SB 53 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_in_Frontier_Artificial_Intelligence_Act), apply to a small number of frontier firms, now some of the most well-capitalized companies in the world. Yes, monitoring rules across states carries real costs, but these compliance costs are a rounding error to these companies. And, the broader state AI laws that reach smaller AI companies mostly require things like transparency and consumer notices, exactly the kinds of rules states already impose in many other regulated industries without killing progress. I've seen no systematic evidence that state AI laws have materially slowed innovation. The case for state participation doesn’t even depend on Congress’s track record on tech regulation (or lack thereof). Even if Congress could somehow become much more effective overnight, AI is still too big and too fast-moving for one governing body to manage its regulation. In this case, a so-called “patchwork of laws” is a feature, not a bug. Parallel beats serial, and independent bodies produce independent ideas, covering ground a single regulator never would. It’s worth noting that Dario himself made this case in an op-ed last year (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/opinion/anthropic-ceo-regulate-transparency.html), opposing a proposed 10-year federal moratorium on state AI laws, calling it “far too blunt an instrument.” I agree (https://gabrielweinberg.com/p/states-should-be-allowed-to-regulate). Congress should set a federal floor on the risks it's uniquely positioned to handle, like existential safety, national security, and cross-border harms, letting states go further where they see fit. While the preemption clause in the Great American AI Act is narrower than previously proposed (for example three years instead of ten years), the provisions of the act itself further make the point that zero years is warranted. On jobs, the act just funds a study to examine the problem rather than meeting the moment, say by levying a direct tax on AI consumption to fund displaced workers. (https://gabrielweinberg.com/p/start-collecting-an-ai-token-tax) If it’s too weak on jobs, arguably the most politically salient aspect of AI regulation needed, you can bet it will also be too weak on any area it is preventing states from regulating. So no preemption please. Let states protect their citizens as they see fit. More rules for AI are needed than Congress is realistically positioned to enact. Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts or get the audio version (https://gabrielweinberg.com/p/podcast). This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gabrielweinberg.com (https://gabrielweinberg.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

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Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 31 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

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63

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0

YouTube

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Engagement

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