Currently, the predominant business model for commercial search engines is advertising. The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users. … For this type of reason and historical experience with other media [Bagdikian 83], we expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers.
The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine
But the quote itself admits that the consumers here are the advertisers, it is natural that the users have little say. The users are being milked/harvested/herded/served to the consumers
Google management used to have a moral compass!?!?
I mean, yeah.
The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine
Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, 1998
But the quote itself admits that the consumers here are the advertisers, it is natural that the users have little say. The users are being milked/harvested/herded/served to the consumers
He recognises that is the way ahead. He is not saying that it is wrong. He knew the evil and decided to embrace it wholly.