I suspect that this is the direct result of AI generated content just overwhelming any real content.
I tried ddg, google, bing, quant, and none of them really help me find information I want these days.
Perplexity seems to work but I don’t like the idea of AI giving me “facts” since they are mostly based on other AI posts
ETA: someone suggested SearXNG and after using it a bit it seems to be much better compared to ddg and the rest.
I’m pretty sure here in the states, a site is obligated to identify ad content and sponsored content, so when a big company like Microsoft or Alphabet is doing it (Bing and Google) it makes me wonder if there’s been a recent carve-out or relaxation of the reg.
That makes the return adversarial to the end-user, hence the point of the regulations.