That first anecdote in the article is relevant, and the article does eventually get to talking about Google. This is the nature of long-form, it doesn't have to dive straight in.
Using "What" in the title was a mistake here. When you see "What" you expect mostly facts, mostly findings. If they had titled it with "How" I would have been more prepared for a lack of immediate answer. "How" denotes that an explanation is needed, and backstory is often necessary in explaining.
Titles are especially important on the web because links only have titles. There's no other context to which you can get an idea of what you're getting into. It's not like in newspapers where you have the context of what section an article is in or visually see how long it is from a glance.
Let's not confuse long-form "there's a lot to be said here" with long-form "we really like padding".
So here, it definitely doesn't make sense for writers to be as straight-to-the-point as possible. It's like asking for some long, cinematic movie (e.g., Lawrence of Arabia or The Revenant) to be edited down to a 60-second YouTube video. Sure, you could squeeze in the highlights, but it would miss the point.
Sometimes you want a grab-and-go sandwich from a drive-through. Sometimes you want a relaxed 2-hour meal with old friends.