Some things are easily quantifiable, but very few. Such as the number of ads per search. Back in the day google had at most 1 and it was visibly distinct from the rest of the links.
Otherwise, yeah, maybe search didn't degrade but the internet got more spammy. Or maybe users just got wiser and can see through the smoke screen better. Who knows...
Doesn't change the fact that today one has to know how to filter through pages of generic results made by low effort content farms. Results that are of dubious validity, which at best simply waste your time. Or through clones of other websites (i.e. Stackoverflow clones).
Search engines can choose to help with that (kagi certainly puts in the effort and I love it for that), or they can ignore the problem and milk you for ad clicks.
Otherwise, yeah, maybe search didn't degrade but the internet got more spammy. Or maybe users just got wiser and can see through the smoke screen better. Who knows...
Doesn't change the fact that today one has to know how to filter through pages of generic results made by low effort content farms. Results that are of dubious validity, which at best simply waste your time. Or through clones of other websites (i.e. Stackoverflow clones).
Search engines can choose to help with that (kagi certainly puts in the effort and I love it for that), or they can ignore the problem and milk you for ad clicks.
Anecdotal evidence is good enough for me.