> If the results suck, people would find alternatives. Look at how many techies installed Chrome for their parents and grandparents when MSIE was pre-installed

> If the results suck, people would find alternatives. Look at how many techies installed Chrome for their parents and grandparents when MSIE was pre-installed and this was an easier-to-use, standards-compliant, and more performant option. It further snowballed from there. It takes a few years for word to get around but they're well aware that providing useful results is the only way to stay relevant The results often do suck and people are actively finding alternatives (mostly techies). No search engine I've tried has really reached the bar where I'd push my friends/family to switch but they are getting closer and closer. MSIE had a lot of momentum and it wasn't FF that techies installed, it was Chrome, all that to say just because we haven't seen a Google replacement yet doesn't mean we won't. Furthermore people's frustration with Google search is directly what has lead to the alternatives that have been gaining popularity (again, mostly in techie groups so far). With your logic I could have said back in 2009 that "If IE sucked people would find alternatives", momentum is hard to fight but it can be done. > they're well aware that providing useful results is the only way to stay relevant If this post [0] is to be believed then providing useful results is (now) a side effect of wanting to drive traffic to show ads and it's completely valid to degrade the search results if it means people spend more time searching (and thus see more ads). No doubt they have to provide value still but there is nothing saying that's what they are optimizing for, if it happens as a side-effect then so be it. I really have no idea how to reply to the rest of your post which can be summed up to "Google knows best" which I reject completely. I currently use Kagi but I'm not over the moon with it and it has its own issues [1]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40133976 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40133976 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011314