>>2870321 LB
YES, and over the last 6 months, it's gotten progressively worse.
Think of search engines not as gateways to the web, but rather choke points.
Read somewhere recently that only something like 3% of the web is accessible through the google search bar. (don't quote the figure, but it's some absurdly low number).
Filters are very useful to learn for deep research. Find the use of quotes to be helpful in general.
startpage is pretty good. Important thing to realize is never to rely on one, but have a bevy at your disposal. You'll start to learn which ones are good for what.
>One might even say they are being paid to fill the internet with useless garbage to dumb down newcomers to the industry.
Profound statement. Not just for the software industry, everywhere.
Then the algos are tweaked so that these pages dominate the search results.
The whole effort is nothing short of a diabolical manipulation of human psychology.