I think people are missing the actual issue here. Google used to have a clear distinction between what's an ad and what is organic.
In these screenshots you have to pay good attention to see the top result is an ad.
To keep their conversion numbers up they had to constantly reduce the difference between the ads and everything else. The fact that they can do this and we are so used to it that we don't first identify that as the culprit is quite interesting.
I have ran a few Google ads in the recent years and the people who come through them, some of them, clearly have no idea that they have clicked on an ad. This might be good for business but I think it does more harm overall.
In these screenshots you have to pay good attention to see the top result is an ad.
To keep their conversion numbers up they had to constantly reduce the difference between the ads and everything else. The fact that they can do this and we are so used to it that we don't first identify that as the culprit is quite interesting.
I have ran a few Google ads in the recent years and the people who come through them, some of them, clearly have no idea that they have clicked on an ad. This might be good for business but I think it does more harm overall.