Some thoughtful comments already, but I would add it's not just getting older and things that have changed how one might consume or methods of finding new stuff

Some thoughtful comments already, but I would add it's not just getting older and things that have changed how one might consume or methods of finding new stuff on the web. The web, once the world wide web, has been fragmented into many different camps. Those with the latest up to the minute devices running bog standard software, be that something hand held or it's larger cousin, probably notice less fragmentation of the web than those running older software that they've spent time tweaking or simply do not feel the effort relearning where everything is, is worth the trouble. This doesn't seem a great deal but in addition to reliance of search engines to find or investigate new or the latest on whatever hobby or interest, once there was a great benefit of the small world effect when members of forum areas including some social media places would share knowledge and ideas by way of external resources at various web sites - once those links shared were mostly accessible to all but an unfortunate few. Present time I expect fragmentation exhaustion is a real problem where people are tired of; you're a bot please provide $$$ pi, your IP is part of a network ..., wrong browser, your javascript isn't to our liking [can't scrape successfully or data returned seems to be deliberately poisoned,] not belonging to the right social media area to get an automatic pass to view content that ... wft does this need to behind a wall, seriously it's probably just regurgitated material they found at some other more obscure site ... and the long list goes on. The other issue I think is apart from lousy search engine results offered even from the many static sites still unchanged out in the web that no longer enjoy being presented as in search results, is the amount of trouble any search engine presently has to deal with the various website's efforts to be special adding another layer of complexity to derive useful information that may be of interest of anyone searching for the same. The younger set may have also come to accept that the algorithms used by social media and search engines are doing the job wonderfully, so unlike us old folk would might look further, the younger set don't look any further than where the algorithm takes them. Sadly I have little faith in the algorithms big tech and multinationals like to inflict its web users - I'm accustomed to expect so much better, as per google's glory days pre 2010.