The HN-crowd tends to be more demanding and sometimes ahead of the curve, but it's a general trend. I also wonder how much people enjoy using Google vs suffers through it because they don't know any alternatives.
I remember reading that even Google is worried about how crappy their results are becoming and at least some of the company sees it as a threat to itself.
But yes, you're right, Google is still very much mainstream and the #1 search engine. I'm just not certain it's because it's an amazing experience rather than "no other options".