Every logical mind (even within Google) in 1999 would have seen that Google was heading for failure From a make something people want theory of value, they wer

Every logical mind (even within Google) in 1999 would have seen that Google was heading for failure From a make something people want theory of value, they were worth way more than anybody back then. I used to jump from engine to engine trying boolean queries, metacrawlers, keyword mixing, etc, coming up snake eyes. I think most engines were on the 'portal' kick, which I think meant beating people over the head with banner ads and trying to force them to go to content partners. I think if those sites just stopped for a second and histogrammed what users used rather than what they were trying to force them to do, it would have been absolutely obvious that search was the key.