[tremon]

That depends on how you define "users". If you define a website creator also as a Google user (by virtue of wanting to be found through Google), then Google is serving part of its users to the detriment of their other users.

And if you view Google instead as a connection broker, e.g. a middle-man between publisher and consumer, then Google is destroying their own business by snubbing publishers. Assuming that Google is still making rational, intelligent decisions, it follows that Google no longer sees itself like that.

[dyarosla]

Did Google ever see itself as prioritizing publishers and consumers equally? I think that’s a false premise and the parent is right; Google’s priority has always been consumer first.