[greg_V]

They need search for different reasons: it's their biggest moat against Meta by being the start page of the internet for a great many number of people. A whole lot of browsing sessions start with search and end with search, and this way Google can claim attribution for virtually every traffic a website gets outside of direct hits.

This keeps people developing content to please Google and running ads on Google platforms to get more traffic.

[xp84]

Yup. Search is gradually (for about 15 years now) being transitioned from a search feature to a self-serve ad-requesting platform. “Show up, type a term, and we will select 10 ads for you.”