There already exist paid search services which you can compare Google to. I use infinitysearch and it costs US $5 per month.
It's true that their coverage isn't as good as google, but around $1 per week feels very cheap. And the decreased coverage is at least partly compensated by being treated like a customer instead of a product.
I don't not use DDG. I also don't not use Google. I tend to mix it up depending on what sorts of results I'm after and how private the search should be.
One thing I like about IS compared to DDG is that DDG is still funded by advertising. This means that people are still paying to bias the results I see.
By paying money to a search engine which doesn't rely on advertising at all, I have more trust that IS are really vested in showing me the results that I think are best. (They don't always succeed, but I trust that it's not about the results being undermined by third parties, it's just that they are still fairly small.)
It's true that their coverage isn't as good as google, but around $1 per week feels very cheap. And the decreased coverage is at least partly compensated by being treated like a customer instead of a product.