[mbwgh]

It's likely dependent on the 'user archetype'. If you need to e.g. lookup things related to beginner-friendly programming languages, the search results for Google are strongly tainted with SEO crap.

Being able to either outright block/pin sites, or only lower/raise them in your search results, made a difference for me after a few days of searching.

I do hope the future of search will include being able to use natural language, but also still the more precise '"This" +"That"'.

In any case, more competition is a good thing, the lack of it is what got us into this mess in the first place.