Uh meta is (was) just a version of Google Scholar with an emphasis on biomedical publications and better tools for scientists and clinicians to keep track of it all. Not sure that warrants your conspiratorial rant?
Bibliometrics spans multiple scientific fields of research , eg, philosophy of science, and an important practical area that emerged are tools like Google scholar that are one of the key tools to how scientists work today.
A scientist might skim 50+ papers for the background needed into every 1 paper they the write (and many more abstracts), so STEM researchers spend a LOT of time in tools like Google Scholar. Likewise, part of the job of a scientist is to disseminate their results to other scientists, so part of the writing process is to carefully adhere to bibliography conventions explicitly so tools like these can help make your work more accessible.