I disagree current systems can turn a web search that presents results in a pleasing manner. I had a horrible time trying to find a specific musician's work on YouTube just last night. It kept recommending me completely unrelated vids as if I was browsing just to browse. It couldn't seem to comprehend that even though I usually watch cute cat videos today I am searching for music, even when I was exact quoting the author's name.
I think technology has shifted from giving me what I want to telling me what I want. I really dislike it.
I think a part of this problem is just simply a matter of scale. As more and more information gets generated and stored on the internet, finding the information you exactly need in 3-5 words typed into a search engine at some point just ceases to become probable or even possible. So search engines have to predict what you want based upon the limited information you give it (and does this using others things such as how often something is visited, search patterns, trends, and/or related promotions), and you end up perceiving it as it telling you what you want.
Sadly giving a search engine too many words can stop it from even searching, probably because that would cause a scan or result in a very time and computer/resource intensive search. So it doesn't even bother searching and tells you it couldn't find anything.
You answered yourself in the last sentence. Google's algorithm is designed to maximize their add return not to immediately return what you are searching for.
Imagine this use case. User searches for a video that costs Youtube royalty fees and is not monetized. Do you prioritize that in your return results or some other video that makes your business money instead of costing it?
Same thing with the Spotify Company playlists and recommendations versus user generated ones. Spotify's seems to include lesser quality, lower royalty songs now even though that is not what I want and it knows it. But unlike Google, I only go to Spotify BECAUSE of the quality of the songs it recommends me. Now that it's priority is first lower royalty songs over songs it things I would like the most I have no incentive to stay.
I think technology has shifted from giving me what I want to telling me what I want. I really dislike it.