> If I want to search for something topical and relevant, I go to Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, HackerNews, Instagram, Google Maps, Discord etc. The general Internet is dead: it's just legacy content and spam.
The "general" Internet is not dead. Though if you just want to participate in just Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, HackerNews, Instagram, Google Maps, Discord you might well think that.
Users of marginalia (author above), Mojeek (disclosure: CEO) and others [0] are well aware that there are riches of organic human-made content; from years back and new. Yes, a lot of noise too, which Google has a bigger (SEO) struggle to compete against. But still there is good and different content available.
To find good content, using search, you need to use "search" engines which enable discovery, as Google used to do so. I stress the "search" as the emphasis of Google, Bing and thus their syndicates is increasingly on being "answer" engines.
[0] https://seirdy.one/2021/03/10/search-engines-with-own-indexe...