Stephen Dubner: I've been shocked at how fast the wins on this topic have shifted. In early 2022, a Brooklyn man named Vitaly Borcher was arrested for running a fraudulent online store that sold eyeglasses. He would send customers faulty or counterfeit glasses, overcharge them, and then if they complained, he would harass or threaten them. After a couple of decades with Google as the main gateway to online search, the web is constantly shape-shifting to fit inside Google's algorithms.
It used to feel like magic. Now it can feel like a set of cheap tricks. Is the problem with Google — or with us?