Hm, I'm divided on this. The more shallow population got addicted to the Internet and the search results represent that. I don't think it's a problem of Google

Hm, I'm divided on this. The more shallow population got addicted to the Internet and the search results represent that. I don't think it's a problem of Google search results. It's more a herd mentality. Geeks not excluded (hey look, it's shiny! - what, useful?). On the other hand, Google also provides much more value in search than before. When I travel to a city I can go to Google maps and visualize my destination and find a hotel near by. Navigation is useful, we are perfecting it since thousands of years and Google is really good at it. As for advertising, it has it's place (like when I'm traveling) and somehow Google got good at showing it to me when I need it. It's sad that they are the only player to provide this kind of value from a backup perspective, but I don't see a credible alternative to them. And they do contribute back to the community, so I can't even fault them in that respect. Now maybe there is a point that advertisement is a kind of manipulation and they are brain washing you plus spying on your every move. But if there is one thing I learned it's that nobody cares what you want to say. Algorithms don't frighten me for every day searches (you want to know I search for Ubuntu and Python 3? be my guest!). I also use add-block and intuitively ignore the highlighted search results in (which sometimes confuses me, as the thing I search is in there). I hate ads for stuff I don't care about or even dislike and add-block is good with that. Maybe that's why they are so successful, they computed what to show me when I'm looking for it and keep the crap away otherwise..