Google is not a search engine. It’s an advertising service. Their whole business model revolves around a critical mass of eyeballs, which flock to free services. This will never happen for the average user.
I’m not sure you you understand how Google makes money…which would tell you why this would never happen.
I’ve recently started paying for unlimited searches over on Kagi, and I’m very happy with the results so far. I’d gladly pay if it meant less search cruft and higher result quality, but sadly Google’s just been going downhill for quite a while now.
Its a big black box with an unquantifiable improvement in quality, and I have no particular inclination to sign of for yet another subscription service. Particularly when I already watch my existing services creep up in price year after year.
That’s before I even get into shit like standard utilities. My electricity bill last month was $500, almost entirely based on the Texas AC bill. Bro, who has another $10/mo to spend on Newoogle when I’m maxed out just keeping the lights on?
It’s unquantifiable, yes, possibly even placebo at times, but I think of it as paying for the features on top of search. I particularly find being able to create and adopt a search “lens” / focus and the ability to (de)prioritise domains very useful for my situation and needs.
That being said, I totally agree with your sentiment. I also only have limited subscriptions I can practically maintain, and I feel like this one’s earned it’s place well enough. To each their own I guess.
