If you ask Dave, Google’s profit motive is keeping them from taking “the next big step in search”. Of course, if you ask him, profit motive is what’s keeping everyone from doing great things in every industry. He harps on it so often that he almost sounds bitter. As usual, though, his facts are a little weak:
Today Google’s profits come from ads, and that business gives them a reason to keep search weak. They want you to do a lot of searching to find what you’re looking for — and the stuff they find for you for free is competing with the stuff they make money on. So Google actually has a disincentive to make search better.
Necessary assumption: “the stuff they find for you for free is competing with the stuff they make money on.”
Truth of that assumption: theoretically true. practically false.
In reality, studies have shown that 5 out of 6 people cannot or do not differentiate between sponsored text links in search results and the actual search results themselves. So, sure, it stands to reason that those little text links are keeping Google’s search down, but the facts just don’t support it.
Google could have the most efficient search in the world, and the only time it would help would be when someone has a specific site in mind. The rest of the time google would still enjoy almost 85% of people clicking on their sponsored links. And the reputational gain from people finding exactly what they’re looking for immediately would earn them an even greater share of the search market.