The commoditization of search can't come soon enough. Google shouldn't be able to monopolize this space.
To go out in the streets and talk to people, dig deep into obfuscated government archives, and actually make sense of the world takes real work. It's often work that results in content that isn't always just what their readers want to see.
That's not how it works.
That's not how anything in life works.
Allow people interested in paying for content to pay for content, and then use the discovery mechanisms the content owner makes availlable for that content.
If the content owner wants to promote content that isn't available to the general public via search engines, they can buy search ads like anyone else.
They don't need a subsidy at Google's (and, in terms of time, Google users') expense by way of organic search results for content that most search users will not be able to access when they click the result.
> The commoditization of search can't come soon enough. Google shouldn't be able to monopolize this space.
Commoditization of search (which means heavy competition focussed on minimizing costs) isn't going to make it any more likely that competing public search providers are going to subsidize paywalled content that their users can't use.
Are you sure it's true? Are you sure it's not the opposite? Could either or both be true?
We must critically examine the structural incentives we put in place that support shallow outrage porn over deep, well-sourced, investigative journalism.
Killing search isn't going to add more "real", "substantial" content online.
Without good search, there's a discovery problem. How will people find quality content easily? Where'd you get "killing search?" Search clearly provides value.