Google still works, you just need to be very specific on your search criteria (e.g. site:). I do agree on the premise that good quality data, art and content has been lost to the winds of time.
Needing to use 'site:______.com' in the search query defeats the purpose of an internet search engine.
I agree that it is necessary today, due to the sheer amount of useless sites that pop up on page 1 of the search. I wish Reddit invested more into making their internal site search better. If people did their searches directly on websites, Google would have an incentive to improve search results so it wasn't always the same 10-20 websites topping the list for nearly every query.
