I think this is hitting the nail on the head. AI and ChatGPT isn't even the point. The scary part is that Google appears to have cannibalized their own offering in order to keep their numbers black to the extent where they have no ostensible way of dealing with a credible competitor.
Ironically, the young Page and Brin predicted the inherent conflict of interest between search and advertisement.
"For example, we noticed a major search engine would not return a large airline's homepage when the airline's name was given as a query. It so happened that the airline had placed an expensive ad, linked to the query that was its name. A better search engine would not have required this ad, and possibly resulted in the loss of the revenue from the airline to the search engine."
Ironically, the young Page and Brin predicted the inherent conflict of interest between search and advertisement.
http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html#a
With gems such as
"For example, we noticed a major search engine would not return a large airline's homepage when the airline's name was given as a query. It so happened that the airline had placed an expensive ad, linked to the query that was its name. A better search engine would not have required this ad, and possibly resulted in the loss of the revenue from the airline to the search engine."