[nostrademons]

The time period he's talking about is 2001-2006. HN didn't even exist then. That was when Google was basically like magic and let you find stuff you never knew existed.

HN started complaining about Google being too spammy around 2008, and then about results getting too clever around 2012 or so.

[lostmsu]

This was not clear because one of the slices did not mention the span it lasted.