To be fair Google’s results have been shite since the SEO arms race in about 2014.
Yeah, I use other search engines.; they might not be that much better but at least they don’t start off with scams and “suggested” websites.
I mean Google made its own bed here. Their chronic enshitification because they thought they were invulnerable really means the digital landscape doesn’t have a solid accessible alternative and “Web 2.0” capitalization of network effects to concentrate attention means viable competition is always going to be niche.
This is mostly the fault of the tech giants, but if we’re being honest, we all played a role in letting it get this bad. Kids are just following the path of least resistance.
Google has been just good enough for it not to start a mass exodus to alternatives. Even if those alternatives are just google/bing front-ends themselves with no real indexing of their own.
But Google is pushing its own AI at the top of its searches. As if search is going to “soon be deprecated”.
As if Google and other big providers deciding that giving you bad results so you’d have to view ADs for longer wasn’t bad enough for the young people’s ability to critically think and find information…
Now they’re going to AIs that’ll outright lie to them with confidence of someone about to say “I told you so”.
