Consumers are often in a "buy mindset" when searching for something. The phrasing of their search query can indicate it. For example, someone search for "cheap office chair" most likely already has their CC in hand. It's a search query that belongs as much on Amazon or Craigslist as it does on Google. So when it's searched on Google, the idea is that the market will provide more relevant results than an algorithm designed for ranking articles based around keywords and semantic equivalence of the content.

> So when it's searched on Google, the idea is that the market will provide more relevant results than an algorithm designed for ranking articles based around keywords and semantic equivalence of the content.

And the market does this in a relatively simple manner: by letting merchants bid on search keywords, and showing the site of the merchant with the highest bid, you force merchants to either lose money or be relevant.

In other words, the most relevant merchants to a search phrase will have the most money to bid up visibility for that phrase because they make the most money, on average, from users looking for this particular thing.

Good question, when the ETH contract drivel appeared at the end, I hope he is somehow meaning to pay users Ether to see ads. ProofOfView whatever.

People would fix Google if it had an API but it would mean censorship; I would add a ‘credible sources only’ button which is not good for the web but it is what I want. I do not care for traveldiscounters’ SEO or SO or Wikipedia scrapers; I care about the originals. That would greatly improve the experience, but in general it is bad for the internet because someone decides who is credible. Now there I see a place for Blockchain.

Forget about Ethereum for a minute. In the case of Wikipedia, no single company can produce the amount of content that they have on Wikipedia, especially with that reasonable standard of quality. Why is that? Wikipedia has a decentralized culture where principles are the main driver of decisions that are made. Wikipedia's collective Administrators, Bureaucrats, and Stewards do not compose a top-down management structure. It was not easy to do, requiring strong community outreach, culture building, and hard work. It is unlikely to be repeatable in the same fashion given that most Internet users feel they can find what they need online (the innovator in me disagrees with that sentiment, and I am very much aware that my opinion is a minority).

Ethereum, in my mind, is merely a way to help automate, standardize, and enforce similar systems. If it can be achieved without any sort of blockchain, like in the case of Wikipedia, then great. But perhaps the barrier to doing so is just out of reach without the help of the technology. Yes, having a central authority decide who is credible is exactly bad for the Internet, and Ethereum is a possible means to facilitate alternatives. What other alternatives would there be?