b) is an oversimplification, but I'd consider it to be a thought experiment whenever a story about Google or Duckduckgo comes up. You will always find: ><Sear

b) is an oversimplification, but I'd consider it to be a thought experiment whenever a story about Google or Duckduckgo comes up. You will always find: ><Search Engine> is <bad/good> and the results are way <worse/better> than <Another search engine>. ><Search Engine> is only a frontend for <Parent search engine> <but/and> does(n't) do their own indexing. >Results for <Topic (usually technical)> (in <country>)? on <search engine> are garbage. Search results for <purpose> are poor. What you will see as a response: >You should use <search engine> instead! It uses <different parent search> instead so the results are better! >I agree, I didn't like <search engine> so I had to go back to Google. What you won't see: >Nowadays I only use <search engine> for some search, most of the time I use <specific source(s)>. >Maybe you should use specific searches for specific purposes? The two that you cited are very valid, and I'm sure many people use specific sources for specific things (most doing it unknowingly via apps). The main thing seems to be that (on especially desktop) the single purpose all-encompassing web portal seems to be the way to find something. The phrase "Google it" is a catch all for 'do your research'.