I strongly disagree. I switched to Duck Duck Go about six months ago and haven't missed Google at all.

Maybe Google was much better at some point in time in the past, but I haven't noticed any meaningful difference these days.

Google's advantage is their massive brand awareness. They've done an outstanding job with brand marketing - positioning themselves as smart and nerdy, so people are inclined to subconsciously think of them as highly performant, even without any evidence to back it up.