In the 20-30 searches that I do in a day, I still have to google about half of them. Either because it's stuff Google does well (currency conversion, for example), or Kagi just doesn't get what I'm trying to search.
I remember starting out with the Internet searching on Altavista and Yahoo and Lycos. The information that was present was nowhere near as now, and it was more "exploratory". Nowadays people just kind of know what they want and just wants to quickly get there.
Currency conversion is not technically a search. It is question answering and Kagi capabilities are still being built. Google only has a 20 year headstart. Can you report all such cases to kagifeedback.org so they are on our radar?
The other examples are a bit harder to describe and I can't quite describe how Google gets it right. I think I might need more time to describe it out, as it involves search in another language.
There have been lots of no ads (for now) attempts. DDG had like one small ad at one point. But people didn’t leave in droves. It’s almost like people are ok with ads.
I agree, which leads me to the conclusion that subscription is the best way to avoid this conflict of interest. Unfortunately, most of the world won't subscribe to a search engine, and doesn't seem to mind ads - to a degree. With Google looking more and more like AltaVista before its demise (to Google), my conclusion is that Google will strangle itself out of existence and give way for the next "new, streamlined, not-full-of-ads" competitor.