[superasn]

> Search quality at Google has been decaying over the past decade.

This one line is echoed again and again on HN and yet in my experience all its competitors still pale in comparison. I hate Google now as much as the next HNer for its evil shenanigans but their search is still superior and if a browser comes with a default like Bing or Ddg (like ff on linux mint) the first I do is change it back to Google since the results are truly aweful otherwise.

[basch]

But it is worse than it was a decade ago. Across the board. There's more pollution than ever on the internet, and search engines are doing a worse job of separating the diamonds out.

[1024core]

Just look at the number and size of ads. Quite often, the entire first page of results is ads, and you have to scroll down to find the organic results.