Absolutely agree Google Maps is also awful. For transit I've completely ditched google for Citymapper (I'm in London). I think at this point Google is a reasonable fallback mostly when you expect to want someone you think would be paying Google.
Remember Goto [1]? The search engine that at the time was much maligned for letting people ... buy sponsored results and arguing it made their results better...
Goto became Overture...
Overture was bought by Yahoo.
But where Yahoo faded away, Google has largely become Goto 2.0.
There are narrow niches where that model works for users. When you're specifically searching for a shop for example, it's often ok.
Remember Goto [1]? The search engine that at the time was much maligned for letting people ... buy sponsored results and arguing it made their results better...
Goto became Overture...
Overture was bought by Yahoo.
But where Yahoo faded away, Google has largely become Goto 2.0.
There are narrow niches where that model works for users. When you're specifically searching for a shop for example, it's often ok.
But for everything else it's absolutely awful.
[1] https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/goto-forgotten-search-engine/