> I searched "plumber Austin TX" in Google and got a map and list of company websites near me.
I think you could have done this historically in a Yellow Pages phone book. My OP used "boring". A list of plumbers is boring, been done on dead wood. I'm not saying boring != !useful.
> There are a lot of "top x y in z" list sites
This is an understatement. I actually want to know the top x in y, to do that I need "rational discourse". Rational discourse is recognizable as well written, insightful, humble, reflective, self-countering, anecdotal etc. By "search is terrible" I mean with respect to finding this.
> OP's project isn't optimized for relevance, it's optimized for nostalgia
Nostalgia is highly relevant if it's on topic, but agreeing with you as to what this engine is about.
>Rational discourse is recognizable as well written, insightful, humble, reflective, self-countering, anecdotal etc. By "search is terrible" I mean with respect to finding this.
I believe a search engine that ignores results based on superficial and aesthetic qualities like "modern web design" would be even worse in that regard, unless you're assuming no relevant discourse about any subject has taken place on the web since the early 2000's.
I admit, I have no idea what heuristic you would actually use to find "well written, insightful, humble, reflective, self-countering, anecdotal etc" content, but I've seen it on modern sites (even on Twitter,) and I've seen a lot of garbage on old sites, so a simple text search of only old websites doesn't seem like it.
> I believe a search engine that ignores results based on superficial and aesthetic qualities like "modern web design" would be even worse in that regard
I think you may be confused. No one's trying to replace Google here. The idea is to have another option for when Google craps out on you. And if you find that Google almost always craps out on you, then hey, maybe you're in the 5–10% who have just found their new default search engine :-)
I think you could have done this historically in a Yellow Pages phone book. My OP used "boring". A list of plumbers is boring, been done on dead wood. I'm not saying boring != !useful.
> There are a lot of "top x y in z" list sites
This is an understatement. I actually want to know the top x in y, to do that I need "rational discourse". Rational discourse is recognizable as well written, insightful, humble, reflective, self-countering, anecdotal etc. By "search is terrible" I mean with respect to finding this.
> OP's project isn't optimized for relevance, it's optimized for nostalgia
Nostalgia is highly relevant if it's on topic, but agreeing with you as to what this engine is about.