[zo1]

I would argue that the snippet is the thing of value being potentially abused, not the page.

So if I search for e.g. "specific breakdown of something something, in a unique breakdown format that only this website has", then the website owner has worked on, created unique/copyrighted material, and posted it on a page on their site, and Google just extracts that piece, then they might as well have "acquired" the right to host that piece of info on their search results "page".

Google "extracting" that crucial bit of info and essentially "hosting" it on their search results page could definitely be argued to be some sort of abuse of fair-use (and at this point - who is willing or big enough to take on Google on this to set a precedent? The EU, maybe? ). It's not like they're quoting a piece of a large text, they actively find the specific piece of juicy info that relates to your query and host it on their page instead of yours.