I think what Matt is trying to say is that your memory of what Google was like in 2000 could be inaccurate. So he's demonstrating what Google was actually like in 2000.
Of course you were impressed and satisfied with Google back then — it was so much better than the alternatives. I'm sure you would have been just as (perhaps more) satisfied if 2011 Google existed in 2000. We've had 11 years to pinpoint the deficiencies of Google. Couple that with 11 years of rapid progress on the internet — we just expect more now.
What's confounding to me is that there's an obvious solution to Google's biggest problem (spammers and scammers):
1. Allow users to individually block URLs and domains on a permanent basis.
2. Accumulate massive amounts of data regarding blocked URLs/domains (a good quality indicator)
3. Integrate this data into the PageRank algorithm
I'm not sure why it's taking Google so long to do this, at least step 1.
A reason could be that it would slow down searches too much. Firstly, all your searches would have to hit a server storing your blacklist. Secondly, it makes caching results of popular queries neigh impossible. Finally, some people will build blacklists so large and convoluted that the top hit on some of their searches would only be on Google's page 20.
How about they build it in as a feature of Chrome? The servers can still send the canonical list, using cached results and all, but then it gets filtered down (and perhaps in the future reranked a bit) on the user's machine. As a bonus, it increases the value of switching to Chrome.
Aha, good explanation, thanks. I still have to think with all of Google's brainpower, they could figure something out. They already allow "starred" results, which I presume would function somewhat similarly to a blacklist from a technical standpoint (just showing instead of hiding).
Sure they could use other ranking methods like user black lists, white lists (bookmarks/favorites), timing the number of seconds until someone back buttons, etc... But as long as google garners the majority of the search market it will all be manipulated.
Of course you were impressed and satisfied with Google back then — it was so much better than the alternatives. I'm sure you would have been just as (perhaps more) satisfied if 2011 Google existed in 2000. We've had 11 years to pinpoint the deficiencies of Google. Couple that with 11 years of rapid progress on the internet — we just expect more now.
What's confounding to me is that there's an obvious solution to Google's biggest problem (spammers and scammers):
I'm not sure why it's taking Google so long to do this, at least step 1.