It’s not being shit at searching. I find that google has become almost unusable for me. It’s been on a steady decline for years now, but in recent months I pretty much can’t use it if I want to find anything remotely specific. And god forbid that I need to find something that uses similar terms to a more common search querry, then I can forget it. I basically can’t use it for coding or literature research anymore and I am forced to use AI.

Which performs ever so slightly better, but is still shit.

Why would you restrict who’s allowed to read the publications based on the “credibility” of the reader?

That’s not the problem, the problem is that the journals legally restrict you from making your publication openly accessible.