I'd assume Google leadership weren't unintelligent, looked at the trends, and decided maximizing search revenue per user was more advantageous than search quality.
E.g. how Amazon knows they have a problem with counterfeits and low-quality copies that damages their brand, but chose volume over quality
Neither company will ever explicitly put it in those terms, but it seems obvious Google isn't looking at search as a growth engine anymore.
It’s not a judgement of intellect but of character. Those people were forced out of Google when the advertising/boiler room mentality took over.
Amazon kind of does say it but they were clever about it. They don’t let rhetoric win only raw numbers. That means they will always shill or scam for profit. Has been that way for decades but only now are people paying attention.