I admit I'm somewhat pre-inclined to defend Google here a bit. That said: I wonder how much of this is an issue of the incentives for producing different kinds

I admit I'm somewhat pre-inclined to defend Google here a bit. That said: I wonder how much of this is an issue of the incentives for producing different kinds of content, as opposed to just an issue of what Google chooses to optimize for. I.e., yeah, lots of searches turn up mostly listicle bullshit. But is that because higher quality content is more difficult to monetize (e.g., people that are inclined to click on listicles are more likely to click on ads?), and therefore less likely to be produced in the first place, and even if produced, its authors are less likely to put in money/effort into SEOing it?