> it’s an unfortunate error to believe it represents any reality other than Google’s opinion of what its users want in that second.
That was also true when search results were purely based on terms entered, barring the domain name affecting the default language, and user configuration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble
> A filter bubble – a term coined by Internet activist Eli Pariser – is a state of intellectual isolation that allegedly can result from personalized searches when a website algorithm selectively guesses what information a user would like to see based on information about the user, such as location, past click-behavior and search history. As a result, users become separated from information that disagrees with their viewpoints, effectively isolating them in their own cultural or ideological bubbles.
I remember when was totally normal to settle how a word was spelled by looking what spelling had how many results. I'm not saying that wasn't silly, but I actually remember people actively using that "consensus reality" in forums, all the time. "how did you find that", "I entered X and then it was the third result", "oh yeah I see, thanks". The traditional exception was things blocked on youtube in various countries, but otherwise we took it for granted that if you visit a certain public URL, you get the page someone else would get.
That doesn't mean one confuses those Google search results with reality anymore than every person in the cinema seeing the same movie means they confuse it with reality. It just means that experience is part of the common world they inhabit. When I go into a library, the selection of books there is rather arbitrary, but that's still very different from there just being a clerk who might recommend one book to me, to then lie to someone else and pretend to not know that book.