Aside from prioritizing Ads, I actually think the root of the problem is sort of the opposite: information has simply gone from scarce to too abundant. Finding information you need is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. To solve this problem, search engines like google search came into being. Initially, having multiple search engines caused a problem in itself: if you have 700 search engines, which search engine do you use? So the industry naturally ended up coalecesing into a near monopoly, as having 1 (or a few) engine(s) to use is simpler than having 700. However, the root of the problem is still growing. Now it's not so much as "which search engine to use?" but more: "what's the precise combination of text to feed the search engine needed to find my needle?" And as more information gets created, the problem just gets worse: your information gets drowned in the sea of other information and thus gets harder to search for...

Amusingly, appending "reddit" to your search is like a pseudo search engine in itself, instructing the search engine to act as a search engine of only a specific domain of information. Almost like we're back to having multiple search engines, and no one knows which one to use...