India, Aug. 6 -- I started using the Internet extensively in 1996. It was tough making sense of the at that time seemingly endless realm that had been presented before us. Yahoo! was an established giant. It looked likely to dominate every aspect of the Net, from search to chats to groups to business solutions.

Google Search was launched in 1998 and by the early 2000s had captured the global mind space. The search was quick and effective. Everyone liked it. Google became a verb. The best part was that their fortune earner Google Ads (earlier called AdWords) was seamlessly integrated into search without being much of a nuisance. Google was a much loved and reliable company, not only successful.

With the passage of time, the quality of se...