I use Spotlight all the time to search for the contents of files. I don't memorize the contents and names of every file on my system, that's what my computer is for.
A feature I never wanted has ruined a feature I do want. It’s a complete own goal. In frustration I turned spotlight off completely a few months ago. Rip.
also, for opening apps, https://charmstone.app/ is pretty great.
What I find really annoying with macos is that with stock/default settings it is the worst UX. You have to download an app to launch apps, an app to move and resize windows, an app to reverse the mouse's wheel direction to be the opposite of the trackpad, an app to manage the menu bar (esp decrease the spacing, so that you can fit items up until the notch). Then, you also need anyway to spend an hour tweaking settings and run custom commands (such as `defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false` so that you can actually type stuff like aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa). These are just needed to make using macos bearable, and do not include any kind of "power user" kind of stuff.
I used to hate macos before getting my own mac, because I had to use some at work in their default settings and it was just a horrible experience.
what problem was really solved here?
And then you'll have to wait for grep to trawl every folder to find the right file rather than consult an optimised index.
Oh it doesn't have those things so is a non-option.
Tahoe in general sucks but Spotlight has been a pretty good local search for nearly twenty years. The image OCR added in Sonoma made it even more useful.