[surgical_fire]

That's an interesting idea.

While I don't have the answer, what we might consider is the incentives that come with each model.

In the current model, the incentives are clear. Google's incentive was to rent-seek all usefulness out of web search, privileging advertisement and their own profitability over usefulness.

I am not sure if a search engine beholden to the government would be ideal. Governments do have their own sets of interests (legitimate or otherwise) that may at times go against users.

Web search is in the end a piece of public infrastructure, used by billions across the world, very much subject to the Tragedy of the Commons.

Perhaps it should be some sort of nonprofit, as other projects are (Linux Foundation comes to mind, being a successful one).

[RavlaAlvar]

I would guess just the incentive for any website to become top of the search results would likely create the outcome of today’s SEO landscape.

[surgical_fire]

Except that Google is complicit and directly benefits of the current state of their search engine, no matter how awful it is to actually use it.