1. The post assumes that the search result quality is not good. This simply is not the case. Users say the search results are good. Could they be better? Sure. Are they terrible? No.
2. The post assumes users want transparency on the search algorithm. This clearly is not the case. The whole reason that google became what it is today is because of the lack of clutter and good search results.
If you remember Altavista then you remember users constantly having to fidget with all these knobs in the advanced section to get relevant search results. Lycos, excite, etc weren't much better. I remember using Google for the first time and it just worked.
3. The post assumes that users want deep customization. This again is not the case. Users want less clutter, less knobs, and a faster search experience. Google is delivering that.
4. The post assumes that any startup with a better algorithm can beat google. However this is not the case. Google has deep search integration with mobile providers such as it's own Android OS and also iOS. it also has it's own browser (Chrome) and has paid deals with Mozilla. Obviously, both browsers default to Google when you type something in the search field.
Not to mention, the leading IOT devices all connect to Google to find results when it needs to search the web. And for safe measure, Google has come out with its own voice assistant device, Google home, to safe guard against any shenanigans from Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa that might happen in the future. It is heavily subsidizing the price to make sure it has a strong horse in the voice game.
Integration aside, it also has scale. It crawls most of the internet several times a day. That's no small feat and it is quite hard for a startup to just replicate that with funding. I mean, even that won't cut it.
Google is now even using machine learning to understand relevant pieces of information on a webpage so when you query it by typing on your keyboard, by voice, or future mind control it delivers the answer you were looking for.
The only valid point the post makes is that Google has squashed competition by buying any startup that remotely could threaten it's position...for safe measure. I'll give the author that.