I Just Want to Search
The author laments the decline of effective search functionality across modern digital platforms, including Google, Gmail, and e-commerce sites. They argue that the shift from precise retrieval to algorithmic recommendation has made it harder for users to find specific information.
Why it matters
This highlights a growing user frustration with the 'enshittification' of search engines, which impacts productivity and information access for millions of users.
Learning to search was a key skill growing up as a teen in the 2000s. How to use accurate keywords, quotes, the entire lot of search operators. Google-fu was a hard earned skill (yes, I read a book) and helped me figure out a surprising amount of life.
How to Do Just About Everything on a Computer, 2000
Search these days though is a bit of a dumpster fire. It has shifted from just retrieval towards relevance and recommendation and it sucks. I’m not just talking about web search, which has oscillated between “help me find the link for this product” to “somewhat useful if you can ignore the SEO spammers” [1]. No, I’m lamenting how poor search has gotten inside emails, online marketplaces, and messaging apps. I’m lamenting that the user has progressively lost control over what constitutes a search.
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