<a Google executive> uses woodworking as an example: if Google knows you’re interested in woodworking as a hobby, how can it help facilitate that? By answering questions, yes, but also by showing you new tools you didn’t know about, cool YouTubers you’ve never heard of, places you can go to learn new skills, and much more. You won’t get all that with even the most skillfully crafted query, and 10 blue links won’t get you there, either.

This kind of exposing the user/searcher to so many different but "related" things, causes the user to get distracted, lose their focus on the task they were trying to get done, and get lost in one of these rabbit holes. This is how most people lose productivity, and I've been guilty of it for many years, even though I knew better. It's just in our nature to chase new, shiny, things and these companies want to capitalize on that. Nothing wrong with doing business, making money, but a company should not do unethical things that it _knows_ is detrimental to its users' health, wealth, or happiness.

If someone has a hard time imagining this change is detrimental to Google's users: Imagine a Bank advertising for a Casino; as you walk into your Bank's branch to do business (you're there to deposit, withdraw, get a loan, invest, etc.), you see pamphlets, posters, etc. of their "partner" (_related_ entity, by being in business of money), a neighborhood casino, and those pamphlets and posters waxing on about how many wonderful things and experiences you didn't even know existed, and you could learn more about those things and experiences if you just visited that Casino once.

I, being an old geezer, would like to go to a Bank's branch without being harassed into spending money on things that are bad for me, financially. If their advertisements are for other products of theirs, in the same vicinity of saving or investing money, with different risk:reward ratios, I'm okay with that. But being shown ads of products and services where I'm almost certain to lose money, is not okay with me.

Bringing it back to the woodworking hobbyist's example used by the Google exec: when I ask Google a question about, say, "best wood polish for dark grain look", and say it shows me tools I "didn't know about" (so I can buys them), or "cool YouTubers I've never heard of" (so that those youtubers, and YouTube, can make money via ads), or "places I can go to learn new skills", "and much more". All those things seem related, of course, but they are all rabbit holes that are detrimental to whatever task I was trying to get done when I asked Google that question.

Thankfully, (I just checked) today the Google search results for that search query shows results as links (and some videos). and ads all related to wood polish. But when Google starts to dilute the results with things farther on the periphery of a question, people will start searching elsewhere, where responses to their questions are not diluted. I'm sure Google execs knows this, and have metrics to track when this starts to happen, and they will dial back based on the result of their A/Z testing (A/B testing is for small fish, Big fishes have many more variables they can test simultaneously. :-)