It is clear that the signal to noise ratio of the WWW is getting worse. It's much harder to find good content when using a good old search engine. And if it's good it is usually hosted on Reddit or Stackexchange.
So remember, even if it's easy too Google something (well, it isn't nowadays), we want to create a fediverse of good content that helps people (I hope). So, it's always better to write a real answer if you have the time and energy. Please help boost the SNR and reverse the AI fueled information degradation loop.
I've never had issues with looking anything up. By downranking Reddit and using a search engine with a good indexer that downranks bullshit and generated websites, which mine is really good at, I haven't noticed much change from how it was before.
But I agree with the second part. That's something that never occured to me, and it makes sense. I was usually trying to answer questions I knew, and never had the urge to reply "just google it", so it doesn't change much for me, but it's a really good point I never realized.
I just use Kagi, which seems to be pretty good at filtering bullshit by default, and have mabually downranked reddit and twitter, ot any other site I found and don't like. But it's been a long time since I used other search, so I can't compare it much since I'm used to it. Never really had any problems with not finding what I need.