I suspect that this is the direct result of AI generated content just overwhelming any real content.
I tried ddg, google, bing, quant, and none of them really help me find information I want these days.
Perplexity seems to work but I don’t like the idea of AI giving me “facts” since they are mostly based on other AI posts
ETA: someone suggested SearXNG and after using it a bit it seems to be much better compared to ddg and the rest.
You only tested Google and Bing.
Qwant and DDG both use the Bing architecture.
I agree though, search engines have become noticeably worse the last 2 years.
I’m pretty sure they discovered in the google monopoly case that google realized a couple years ago that a worse search experience would not negatively impact their bottom line. So makes sense