At least what you are looking for, is on the first page. With Google you get half a page of ads not relevant to your search, and two pages of SEO garbage, before you get to a relevant search.
If the sound is more of a loud hiss, you might find that echolocation can work very well. Much like our eyes collect available light bouncing off surfaces, similar techniques can be used with sound.
I don't have much of a problem with the small open source projects that are generally very good at filling gaps or addressing niches.
I think most of the waste is coming for the development done by the large open source houses. The canonical and red hats of the world. They should stick to what they are doing well, which is the foundational stuff.
Intel started running into trouble 15 years ago when they appointed CFO leadership as CEOs. They eroded 20 years of engineering leadership for the sake of "stakeholder value". They also destroyed the company culture that made them successful and replaced it with MBA corporate BS.
You can't rebuild that overnight. You basically need to start over.
Firebombing multiple German cities was fine?
You need to educate away your ignorance.