Ask Jeeves, 1996 – 2026

Search engine Ask Jeeves shut down operations on May 1. “We are deeply grateful to the brilliant engineers, designers, and teams who built and supported Ask over the decades,” the company posted. “And to you—the millions of users who turned to us for answers in a rapidly changing world—thank you for your endless curiosity, your loyalty, and your trust. Jeeves’ spirit endures.”  A more user-friendly version of Google (which now holds an infuriating monopoly over the world), the company changed its name to ask.com in 2006 (I wonder if P.G. Wodehouse’s estate finally got wind of it?), having a kind of early AI compatibility (though not as scary and off-putting as AI). Despite the existence of Microsoft Bing, Yandex, Yahoo!, and DuckDuckGo, Google pretty much elbows everyone else out of the way, as Amazon does in the shopping world, becoming the 21^st century versions of Standard Oil and AT&T.