I hate being told to "shop around". What I want is for the default option to be a good one.

On this point, Cory Doctorow @pluralistic spells out why Google is so awful and why even DuckDuckGo isn't a real alternative.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/05/the-map-is-not-the-territory/

Pluralistic: You can’t shop your way out of a monopoly (05 Mar 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

@johnquiggin try https://kagi.com. it costs money, but is good.
Kagi Search - A Premium Search Engine

Better search results with no ads. Welcome to Kagi (pronounced kah-gee), a paid search engine that gives power back to the user.

@rymican I'll take a look