[samatman]

It's still true on an institutional level, though.

Paying customers at Google are pin money, AdSense is bread and butter.

If there's a conflict, AdSense wins, period. There's a firmly entrenched culture where user accounts are a cost center, to be managed "at scale", that carries over to paying accounts. That attitude shouldn't carry over, of course; nonetheless, it does, as you recognize in your last paragraph.