[tyingq]

>How would you demonstrate that search is objectively worse?

There's a few ways to do that. The easiest is to point out that almost any lucrative search query has -0- organic results above the page fold on a typical monitor today. It's all ads unless you scroll down.

Then, it's not proof, but how much time do you think Google spends on things that sit below the fold and aren't clicked on much? What would the financial incentive be?

[cloverich]

> how much time do you think Google spends on things that sit below the fold and aren't clicked on much? What would the financial incentive be?

Quality organic search results is the reason they can have ads above the fold. There's tremendous financial incentive for them to care about that.