[new_guy]

This is a good point I'd never considered before. The better your search, the more people will try to game it, the worse your results will get.

[kibwen]

You (and the OP) are echoing Goodhart's Law, which describes one of the reasons that I've lost faith in the wisdom of markets.

[MichaelMoser123]

yes, however there is an element of real feedback: if an subreddit turns out to be garbage, then people will choose a different subreddit with a different moderation policy. It is possible to prioritize by number of point or by some dynamics over the popularity of an subreddit - that would incorporate this feedback.

[charcircuit]

I've seen people game bad search engines just the same.