I think it'd be kind of neat in a backward way if we went back to the 'specialized encyclopedia' days of the 90s.

Web directories , 'Who's Who in Engineering' type lists, etc.

It's a step back from universal search engines being able to find stuff, but it's a step forward with regards to curation and quality of results; so i'm not sure if it's entirely a downgrade.

The early 90s 'website phonebook' type encyclopedias were interesting[0], but I always had to remind my mom "No, this isn't the entire internet, it's just a bunch of places that people like; the secret ones are 'unlisted'."

Note: I never say this is better than a search engine, it's just an interesting end-result after search engines got polluted and modified til the point of uselessness that we're at now with Google.

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Internet-Directory-Guide-Usenet-Bitne...

Circa 1993, a printed listing of everything on the Internet:

"As easy to use as your telephone book, THE INTERNET DIRECTORY provides: user-friendly instructions on how to get on-line and get the information you want; a guide to the thousands of interconnected computer systems that comprise Internet; tips on how to send and receive messages, and much more"

https://www.amazon.com/Internet-Directory-Guide-Usenet-Bitne...

Someone gave it a one star review in 2008, saying "I tried to use a bit of information from the book and it didn't work so I'm not going to bother reading it anymore."

Another shortcoming is it wasn't printed on acid-free paper for the ages.

It seems there were still similar directories being printed at least as late as 1995.