“They are a monopoly and monopolies are extremely effective at capturing whatever value happens in their vicinity, even if the utility of their products declines.”
Google invited independent publishers to a summit, told them their content wasn’t the problem, and couldn’t explain why its ranking buried them. One attendee grossed $250,000 last year, lost 97% of traffic, and now eats at a food bank. Google’s engineers ran the debugging and came up empty. The ranking is a black box to its owners, and the bill goes to everyone downstream.