I empathize a lot and I hate that a small handful of companies like Google and Facebook have become the not just the gateway to the internet, but the internet i

I empathize a lot and I hate that a small handful of companies like Google and Facebook have become the not just the gateway to the internet, but the internet it self for many people. That said, any measure that Google sets for "quality" will be gamed over time and that is likely part of their motivation to constantly adjust how things are measured. When keywords were important, people used to stuff them. When back links became important, people would buy them. Then back links from spammy domains become a negative thing and people would black hat them. With the rise of domain authority back links from EDUs have become gold. It seems stupid to me that an EDU link to a "fly fishing blog" could be some sort of powerful signal, but that is just where we are today. As Google improves semantics perhaps they will be able to more properly direct users to quality articles without back links as signals, or more likely they will just continue to evolve into a omnipotent Wolfram Alpha answer engine.