It's not a search engine. But the search engines it is based on provide surprisingly good results. So, I would be careful with the statement that "other search engines are not even close to Google".

I think that's just a matter of habits. Initially, it feels a bit unusual and maybe even uncomfortable to use not the search engine you've got used to. But after some time you understand that now Google is the one that is uncomfortable for you.

Did you reply to the wrong person?

I feel like that's equivalent to saying "DDG is not bread, it's a sandwich built on top of other breads"

Maybe Google makes the best bread, but it might be true that someone might make a sandwich on inferior bread that makes for a better overall snack.

In case you don't see the problem inherent in even your analogy: If the bakery goes away, or refuses to sell further bread to the sandwich maker, the maker is fucked.

And there's less than ten bakeries world-wide.

And if the sandwich maker actually got popular enough that people would only buy from them, then the bakeries would indeed give them the finger.