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Google had the same issue pre-monopoly. Since its early history it’s been trying to show users what other users like. “Correctness” was never part of the equation because search engines that paid deference to authority all sucked.

You can easily start a search engine using a different model. You’re going to struggle to compete with anything that prioritizes what users find popular.



My memory may be faulty, but ~2000 I remember results being more objectively useful from a user perspective. Versus competitors.

Granted, it was a simpler problem then, given early web.

But the slide since (in the face of revenue counter-incentives) feels at best like ambivalence about objective value to user.


Circa 2000 the Web was a lot less commercial and filled with ads (and trackers).




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