It has been a constant battle of SEO improving and Google improving the page ranking algorithm. For a long time Google was winning that battle, but more recentl

It has been a constant battle of SEO improving and Google improving the page ranking algorithm. For a long time Google was winning that battle, but more recently they haven't seen as interested. The economic argument you're making may be the reason, but it's short termist if people slowly get driven away from Google by poor quality search results. Five to ten years ago no other engine was close - the fact that duckduckgo was even try was comical. Google had an effectively monopoly. That might not be true at all five to ten years from now if the trend continues.