Compared to the alternatives at the time (and really now) it absolutely is. Without decent search the web is a mess, it's just mountains of information with no logic or organisation and the best content and information is nothing if you can't locate it.
These days their search is starting to turn. Too many sponsored results, no way to avoid the AI takeover or copycat sites. In short the search doesn't actually find you the best results. But still it's hard to avoid it. There's no better way to find what you are looking for wherever it is on the web.
I feel about the same amount of uninformed as I was pre- Google, maybe more so being that there are now whole categories of information that I know are pointless trying to memorise.
What's really changed for me is that now we don't have conversations that peter out because nobody has access to basic facts, i.e. whose population is greater, France or Germany. Now we just look it up, end the argument and move on.
Of course this was possible with other search engines. Google's utility comes conflated with the rise of the smart phone and mobile internet, all of which happened around the same time. Everybody having access to the answer to every question in their pocket is the real game changer.
These days their search is starting to turn. Too many sponsored results, no way to avoid the AI takeover or copycat sites. In short the search doesn't actually find you the best results. But still it's hard to avoid it. There's no better way to find what you are looking for wherever it is on the web.