(In the case that someone in Lemmy still use Google)
Google hasn’t understood the internet for a long time. They created an excellent search algorithm by treating the internet as a single information system that warranted analysis and indexing for convenient traversal.
These days that’s not… Something they’re interested in anymore. The goal is to collect user data for targeting advertising and resale. Their core product is still the search bar, sure, but that’s just a hook to reel you in. They’ll attach whatever buzzword to it it takes to keep it in the zeitgeist. “Ai” is hot right now so that’s the buzzword.
I don’t get the impression technical competency is something Google values anymore…
There’s been some former Google employees with stories about being told by the ad team to scrap mostly completed projects that increased search functionality because in testing it negatively impacted impressions on the “sponsored” search results.
That really says all you need to know.
Beyond that, Google is notorious for having terrible metrics for promotions. It highly incentivises creating new projects and disincentivises maintaining or improving existing systems.
