Is Google supposed to give you an answer, or help you find something you're looking for?
Back when they only tried to help you find something, they were good at that. Really good. Then the ads and meta-slop came in and you couldn't find things anymore.
Then they decided they also wanted to answer questions, which is hard enough (they're often wrong). So they have to focus harder on answering questions.
And since they're trying to do both in one page/place, the question-answering has taken center stage, and finding things is now next to impossible.
So they're no longer a search engine. They're a crap version of OpenAI.
Back when they only tried to help you find something, they were good at that. Really good. Then the ads and meta-slop came in and you couldn't find things anymore.
Then they decided they also wanted to answer questions, which is hard enough (they're often wrong). So they have to focus harder on answering questions.
And since they're trying to do both in one page/place, the question-answering has taken center stage, and finding things is now next to impossible.
So they're no longer a search engine. They're a crap version of OpenAI.