[johnjago]

The author says “The solution to search is a search engine that is aligned with the users.”

I wholeheartedly agree.

The incentives at play are often at the detriment of the person searching, and for the benefit of the company and shareholders of the search engine. Google measures ad revenue and related metrics far more than the abstract concept of whether people are getting the best search results.

The Browser Company, with 22 investors putting in over $50M, has pressure to make a return on that money. The way to do that in the long run? Show paid results. Unless they can make a subscription model work, which many search engine startups have failed at, they'll eventually resort to paid results. Then people will see what's been paid to show up, even if there might be something more relevant to their search than the ad.