I used to think Google was great. You could find the answer to nearly anything.
I used to use Google all the time, and at some point, the results I began to get back were...well...not what I wanted. I found what I was looking for several pages back, and I believe it is standard behavior for a lot of people not to go that far. So they end up clicking on what Google provides to them.
I began paying attention, and realized that even though I KNEW that Google "shaped" its returns...I came to realize it wasn't doing it strictly from a commerce perspective which is what I expected...it was doing it from a political perspective, and an extreme Leftist anti-American perspective.
I had never paid much attention to the stupid "Google Doodles", I stayed deliberately blind to them. When I began paying attention to them at the same time I began viewing their political shaping of returns, it confirmed my conclusions.
What really shook me as it took several years for this to fully sink in, is that there are probably 4 billion computer users on Earth today who view Google as the font of information about...history, politics, science, you name it. And Google has decided it wants to manipulate the thoughts and conclusions of people using its product using the subtle forces of AI, to mold and shape "correct thought" in people.
Bill Whittle did a masterful video recently called The Stolen Election Part II: Stoners and Reptiles
The whole video is worth watching, but his interpretation and presentation of the Big Tech interference in the election is critical. Near the end, if you go to the 14 minute mark of the video, he discusses a video, created for top level Google executives (and meant only for their eyes) that was leaked to the public called "The Selfish Ledger".
Bill Whittle calls it the most frightening thing he has yet seen from the Left, and I agree with him.
It describes how Google views our "ledger" to be compiled by the compilation of our online activities into a "fingerprint" of who and what we are, and likens it to our DNA that identifies us, and how they wish to alter that DNA-like "Ledger" to manipulate people to "think the right way".
Chilling. Even though you sound like you understand this aspect of Google fully, I highly recommend it.