I don't think Google has declined because the quality of the web has declined, I think Google has fostered laziness and a optimistic reliance on algorithms that

I don't think Google has declined because the quality of the web has declined, I think Google has fostered laziness and a optimistic reliance on algorithms that has caused the quality of the web to decline. In the early days, algorithmic search wasn't the only way you found stuff. Links had a lot more use, and people would spend time looking at, cataloguing, and grooming lists of resources. This doesn't scale well if you want a one-second answer to any possible question, but the SEO-gamified Google world is far from perfect in that regard either. Maybe we just need to give up on that "any answer to anything at your fingertips in one second" goal.