How is search so bad? A case study
I have been thinking about the same problem since a few weeks.
The real problem with search engines is the fact that so many websites have hacked SEO that there is no meritocracy left. Results are not sorted based on relevance or quality but by SEO experts' efforts at making the search results favor themselves. I can possibly not find anything deep enough about any topic by searching on Google anymore. It's just surface-level knowledge that I get from competing websites who just want to make money off pageviews.It kills my curiosity and intent with fake knowledge and bad experience. I need something better.However, it will be interesting to figure the heuristics to deliver better quality search results today. When Google started, it had a breakthrough algorithm - to rank page results based on number of pages linking to it. Which is completely meritocratic as long as people don't game for higher rankings.A new breakthrough heuristic today will look something totally different, just as meritocratic and possibly resistant to gaming.