I think it may be a simple consequence of the fact that Google Search is increasingly less of a searching engine and more of an answering engine.

I think Google has been explicit about this (I may be wrong, but I seem to remember thinking about this because Google themselves said it). Essentially, I believe, they are no longer concerned about being a way to navigate all the material found on the internet. Instead, they are concerned with answering the question posed by each search attempt.

That's exactly it.

A few years ago they made a push to answer questions to the point it was in their product description on their "how Google search works" page. To quote it exactly, it used to say their objective is to "return timely, high-quality, on-topic, answers to people's questions."

And that's kind of the whole problem and why there is space for a search that actually returns results from the web in a clear and logical way.

In that case, they have a branding problem, and should rename Google Search to Google Answers.

> I think it may be a simple consequence of the fact that Google Search is increasingly less of a searching engine and more of an answering engine.

I've been thinking about this, and it seems very plausible to me. Which means that Google Search isn't really "search" anymore -- which explains why it's become so bad at that!

Too bad. I remember when Google had the best search engine going. It was a real game-changer. Those days are long gone.

Does Google work if my questions is "what's a good article about X" ? I'm willing to modify my search terms to speak Google's language.

In my experience, Google works better if you ask it questions like that. Not good enough, especially if you're looking for something specific and technical, but better.