[BenoitP]

TL;DR: Goodhart's law rots everything it touches

SEO is in the structure of the internet now. Original Google was great because there was no incentive yet to buy a domain and blogspam it. Google getting shitty is just a natural instance of Goodhart's law, applied to domains and content.

Now, Google originally was based on PageRank; which based itself on every domain being a unit of authority. These have been compromised and drowned by SEO, but the concept remains valid and we could choose people as units of authority. For example PageRank on scientific papers accurately reproduce Nobel Prizes attributions. A person publishing papers is a solid enough foundation for this unit of authority.

It remains to be organized though. And if we take people as units of authority, it means they'd have to 'cite' or vote for each other. This has social consequences and might not be doable. Are you ready to refuse to cite your boss when he/she ask you to do so? Maybe if the vote is secret and delayed by 5 years?