Filters, refinement, user preferences. etc etc. Search is a powerful tool, and the power has been growing exponentially since 1995. But, almost all of that power is channeled into instant results, intuitiveness, "sane defaults" and such. All the capabilities are in the background and the assumed user is lowest denominator on all fronts. The low effort, low technical capabilities, low understanding, etc. This is most people (me included) most of the time, but not all of the time. Maybe I want to filter seo spam (like pinterest) more aggressively. Etc.
This isn't a slam on google really. One thing can't do everything and the thing google search does is what most people need most of the time. It's definitely the thing that makes the most money. But... none of a search engines power has been channeled into making search a power tool. It's a tool that everyone uses many times per day, but there is no learning curve. No getting better. You can't really invest effort and get rewarded for that effort.
Pity really, all this power is there. It's right under the surface. Let us be more than the lazy, dumb user sometimes.
Google have reversed the User Interface paradigm. Instead of users learning the software and telling it what to do, the software learns the user. I don't necessarily mean NNs or personalisation. I mean that the paraign is software-centric. "If the user does X, how should the software respond?" instead of "If the user user wants Y, how does she make the software do it?" That's great for intuitiveness, but it also creates a frame where the software gets better over time but the user never does.
