I think this is an important point. It's easy to lose track of just how bad search has gotten over the years because the enshittification has been so gradual. The replacement of search by AI is capturing so many people's imaginations because it feels like the way google felt when it first came around.

If AI replaces search, I do wonder how long before AI becomes just as enshittified as search did. You know google/OpenAI/etc will eventually need to make this stuff profitable. And subscriptions aren't currently doing that.

I am honestly glad that we have normalized paying for AI in a way that was never normalized for search. This way, there's a fighting chance that it won't become a dumb ads platform (although OpenAI seems to be speedrunning this).