I agree, but the fact that even if you hold the view that ads are beneficial to society, Google is still a bad actor and a net negative to all of us, is particularly noteworthy. We all pay for Google via folks paying ransoms and other scams, having to indirectly pay for high ad budgets every company has to pay off Google to avoid their own search result being squatted by a competitor, etc. There is no company on the planet that the world would benefit more from being shut down.
But the incentives for advertising remain the same, so another similar competitor with similar evilness would emerge to replace them.
I don’t believe the problem is “Google is evil”.
I think the problem is that the incentives create evil, and there is little effective effort (that I have seen) to fix Google’s incentives through legislation or other means.
I worry that many other major companies we interact with are heading down the same path.
TVs are one canary warning us.
Another example: Apple seems to be getting keener on advertising revenue, and I’m not sure that opposing incentives (within Apple or by their customers) are strong enough to overcome the financial temptation. That temptation leads to eventual sin (to use a religious metaphor!) Apple already commits egregious harm through many kinds of “free” apps.
