DDG is much more straight forward vs Google often tries too hard and fails.

It's like how Twitter's default feed changed to try to tell you what you wanted to see, while the old chronological feed was the content you originally asked to follow. The simpler feed was always better and less contentious for non-newbie/casual users.

Google is better at deciphering what you want, but DDG is straight up: here's the simplest results based on your query.

Maybe the solution is both? An evolution of the ML approach that Google uses (ala ChatGPT style mimicking a human) AND offering a tab, or box, or whatever interface, with 'simple' straightforward old-school search results. Until the former is better 99% of the time, they shouldn't abandon the latter.