People say this to acknowledge out loud the perceived change in how Google makes product decisions. In the early days, the lead priority was an awesome, focused

People say this to acknowledge out loud the perceived change in how Google makes product decisions. In the early days, the lead priority was an awesome, focused search experience. Today, the lead priority seems to be comportment with the revenue model. This explains user-hostile deprecations like newsgroup search (a literal search engine they bought and abandoned), RSS Reader, etc. In addition, the ever-decreasing visual distinction between organic search results and ads on Google SERPs is well documented. As is the ever-increasing encroachment of data collection into all their products. Look at how Chrome works with Google accounts now vs 5 or 10 years ago. Google went from a search engine company who runs ads so they can afford to keep building cool things, to an ad company that runs a search engine because it provides provide data and inventory for its ad network.