This. I feel they are "smartening" their results with machine learning and crowding in ML ads and crowding out appropriate results. It feels more and more like Alta Vista before Google ate their lunch. Their ML isn't people-smart yet so those generated results often seem odd (or blatently ad-driven). They may get more and more clicks on ads (and keep optimising for that).
However, there will be a tipping point where the part they can't measure -- annoyance at the results -- turns into people jumping ship. DDG's exponential growth will continue through that and Google will be forced to take notice. I don't know whether that means blocking !g or abandoning some of the smarts on Google results (if possible by that point) or both.
Also, as a side note, I am tired of yelling "ok Google" multiple times at my phone before I get a response.