It's not SEO: something is fundamentally broken in Google Search

There is a general sentiment that Google's search capability has degraded over the years. Many disagree, pointing to metrics that suggest an increase in utility and successful searches for the average user over time. For the instances where Google users have difficulty finding relevant results, the on-going battle with SEO practitioners is cited, with the difficulty of distinguishing legitimate pages from ad farms and the like suggested as an answer to the question of why we see such failures and an increasing reliance on big-name sites as a trustworthiness heuristic. I want to sidestep that debate somewhat by describing my experience with a more controlled environment: voice searching for YouTube videos to play on my Google Home Mini device. Many will remember how remarkably accurate searches were at initial release c. 2017; songs could be found by reciting lyrics, humming melodies, or vaguely describing the thematic or narrative thrust of the song. The picture is very different