> The problem with search is that not only is Google getting worse, but I've also mostly outgrown it, in that it isn't sophisticated to answer pretty much any scientific question I would want to ask.

This simply means that Google doesn't work very well for you, and I mean no offense, but what you are searching is a very, very small minority of search queries. Google still serves a crushing majority of people very well.

You are making the same mistake that Paul is making throughout his essay: he wants startups to build products for him and not for regular users. Seriously, email is actually a todo list? Come on, now.