This is an interesting point. User managed or curated indices offer unique advantages, especially when 'depth of coverage' is more important than 'breadth of coverage'. I believe that we are witnessing people shift away from demanding 'search breadth' as we speak, so someone might possibly decide to do this.
Everything else is effectively the influencer scene. Which is increasingly deplorable as well.
Anything with wide enough reach becomes cost-effective for gaming.
So one would have to return to a highly fragmented world to make gaming the system cost prohibitive.
And that would get us to a pre-Internet world. But then again, it’s not entirely unthinkable that we’re headed towards increasing Internet fragmentation if various governments get their way.
