<i>"...it is hard to think of anything else that we depend on so heavily yet know so little about."</i><p>Except for the power grid, communications infrastructure, medical system, food system, water system, the internet itself, monetary system, etc.<p>It's not really the lack of knowledge about search engines that bothers the author. What makes it stand out is its novelty and the fact that it's visibly controlled by a few entities.
Once, when I had Harry Lewis as a professor, I was telling a friend something about him, referring to him as "Professor Lewis." My friend asked me if I meant a different Lewis, as there was more than one professor with that last name, so, to clarify, since he was a professor of computer science, I said, "I mean the CS Lewis." I have called him "C.S. Lewis" to myself ever since.