Yes. Google did not invent spidering, search engines or anything else like that. They did it more comprehensively and presented it better than anyone else. Instead of being greedy and stupid like almost all the rest, the presented a useful search interface (and still do) free of extraneous junk like ads. They had a long term vision and now place ads within the search results, sometimes to excess. But they know like everyone else that they will be replaced if they go too far.
I completely disagree. In some categories, the entire first page is paid placement. You may have to go to the third page to find popular local businesses over national ads. I have found Google to become less and less useful as they sell more and more advertising. I say this as a Google advertiser who is also finding them becoming less and less effective FOR the advertiser as they make their ads more granular and more expensive by that granularization. They claim it makes them more targeted, but that really means it costs more to get your message to greater numbers of callers.