Is Google Getting Worse? (Update)

It used to feel like magic. Now it can feel like a set of cheap tricks. Is the problem with Google — or with us? And is Google Search finally facing a real rival, in the form of A.I.-powered “answer engines”?   SOURCES: Marissa Mayer, co-founder of Sunshine; former C.E.O. of Yahoo! and vice president at Google. Ryan McDevitt; professor of economics at Duke University. Tim Hwang, media researcher and author; former Google employee. Elizabeth Reid, vice president of Search at Google. Aravind Srinivas, C.E.O. and co-founder of Perplexity. Jeremy Stoppelman, C.E.O. and co-founder of Yelp.   RESOURCES: “A Fraudster Who Just Can’t Seem to Stop … Selling Eyeglasses,” by David Segal ( The New York Times, 2022). Subprime Attention Crisis: Advertising and the Time Bomb at the Heart of t