No. You're assuming that a particular sort of imaginary market dynamic overrides any and every other motivation anyone might have. That is nonsense. If they ca

No. You're assuming that a particular sort of imaginary market dynamic overrides any and every other motivation anyone might have. That is nonsense. If they can make 2% more by selling out half their users and giving them inferior results to serve the interests of somebody or something willing to pay Google money to screw over the users, they will do that without an instant of hesitation, in the absence of oversight. They are in an absence of oversight. You are wildly in error to believe that people magically can tell they're not being harmed. People absolutely have no idea whether they are being 'given the best' anything possible, much less something like search results (or information in general). It is highly profitable to screw over mass audiences for one's own benefit and there's largely no mechanism to prevent this… again, in the absence of oversight.