Google became the go to for search because it was a clean page with a search box and only two buttons.
I'm feeling lucky: which would take you straight to the first search result.
and
Search: Which took you to the results page, which thanks to page rank, were actually useful.
This was in response to the confusing cluster fuck that was every other search engine home page that were filled with crap they wanted you to see and the results were stuffed full of sponsored links rather than search results.
Google has now finished becoming what it once replaced.
You have become they very thing you swore to destroy.
(Tbf they've on the "live long enough to see yourself become the villain" side of things for a while now, but this was the thing that made them stand out, a big part of what first put them on the map.)
I found a spiritual successor for it in https://start.me, and I bought a lifetime subscription since I was going to block the ads anyway and I want to support the project.
They used to let you set up a custom page with comic strips and weather and shit. Return to tradition and let me fill my google search bar with Calvin and Hobbes comics