One of the reasons I go to Google is I'm trying to answer a question where I know the subject area but not the answer to the specific question. So I'm asking for a combination of general concepts and a specific thing.

Entirely fictional example: "hacker news comment bold"

And seemingly every time, the specific thing is crossed out. At that point Google search is worse than useless.

I have a few hypotheses:

1) They are trying to turn it into a general directory in their continued war on DNS.

2) The web has got so big that their technology just isn't good enough anymore.

3) The users they care about are no longer people (such as technical or, per sibling comment, academic) who are trying to find specific information. They prefer to focus on mass-market.

Our strongest defence as consumers is to resist the further slide into monopoly.