[manwe150]

Not sure this is better, but if they don’t pay, most of the first page will instead point to random unrelated competitors and the search result will become visually harder to find. It is basically legalized mafia tactics (“you’ve got a nice business, shame if something were to happen to it if you don’t pay up”) since supposedly you could pay someone else to SEO the site and achieve the same result without just buying ads

[godelski]

You're exactly right that this is mafia tactics. Clearly people are buying into it to

It would be a shame if someone else got the top result

  >> When making more money requires degrading the product you know we've fucked up