Some google representative once said something like "any search result requiring users to go beyond the first page is considered a failure". I think this is where it went downhill. And now AI answers try to condense the handful remaining results into a single answer. But search actually has two purposes, searching for something specific (where above statement might make sense) and exploring something, where you WANT to see more than just a handful of results. Imagine trying to do a literature review with a search where you only get a few results, how could this ever be exhaustive.