I had this exact conversation with someone yesterday, who wasn't aware of Google's "site:**" query functionality and expressed the same frustrations on not bein

I had this exact conversation with someone yesterday, who wasn't aware of Google's "site:**" query functionality and expressed the same frustrations on not being able to find actually relevant content. It's simultaneously reassuring and disappointing that many others also rely on site-filtered Google to find information on the internet. Site-filtered Google is basically the only way I search the web now. As many others have expressed on here, Google used to be such a good "gateway" to the informational web. Now the most relevant results are almost always auto-generated content. I resort to searching specific sites like HN and Reddit as a safe place to get human content, but I feel this to be limiting in it's own way, almost like echo chambers. Are we past the Wild West days of the internet? It now feels like a dystopian reality where I'm constrained to certain pockets that seem relatively safe. I believe Google used to allow a "discussions" filter on queries, which would limit your search to forums. I'm not sure why the functionality stopped being supported. The "Dead Internet Theory" is very real. Given the amount of bots and resulting distrust in information, there's an urgent need for some sort of conversational search. A forum-only search filter is an easy place to start. This could also potentially be a good use case for some decentralized, blockchain-based trust network. If anyone knows of any ongoing projects in this arena, I'd be very interested in contributing.