"Before Google the Internet was more useful" Wow, could not disagree more. It's order of magnitudes easier for me to find a good answer for virtually any question. Not to mention how much better gmail is than mail clients of old. Or google maps, my lord how it has simplified my life.

Google isn't solely responsible for this, but them and other ad-financed companies played a crucial part in building the web as we know it to day. And for me, and everyone I've ever met, the web is a lot more useful today than 15 year ago.

"It's order of magnitudes easier for me to find a good answer for virtually any question"

And as a result your ability to retain the knowledge fades. You outsource your memory and ability to think at your own peril, my friend.

I'm not sure how you can have this opinion unless you've only ever used google search as a basic calculator or spell-checker.

The way I see it, the Internet has had three major business models:

1. Academia. Money is obtained from teaching and grants, which requires researchers, which requires publications, which can be made on the Internet.

2. Ads. Content and services attract users, ad networks pay for pixel space / clicks / views.

3. Payments. Users pay for content and services directly. They are otherwise in the deep web.

There are combinations (such as Premium, which is a mix of Ads and Payments), and marginal other models (such as donations, which are typically for free content and (yet rarer) services).

Considering I am running a successful donation-supported service, I can tell you it does not pay the bills. It merely sustains itself. Projects such as app.net show that even payment-based projects can be challenging.

I remember very well the Internet before Google. It was a cesspool of junk, with banner ads being very common. You must have been living in a different world back then.

I am trying to hard?

What, no one has ever criticized you for overblown rhetoric?

I feel like I present a pretty sound argument. This is done via rhetoric of course, but what isn't. In what way is it overblown? I am not taking it to an extreme, I am actually pointing out the extreme the blog poster has taken.