How many search result pages are too many?

“Less than 1% of Google searches proceed beyond the first page.
Source: The Dumbest Generation by Mark Bauerlein”
Hmmm. Is this a good or a bad thing? Debate . . .
Would we be upset in olden times if the first catalogue card had the right source, right away? Not likely, we’d celebrate.
If the algorithm is working well, why should we have to go to many pages?
If it’s a who, what, where, when question, one of a factual nature, then a decent result should be on the first page too.
I’d be more interested to know how many people go deeper on the how and why questions of life. The ones libraries are set up to support – learning and research.
Stephen