Personally, I'm ok with a bit of "oh, this is what I think you meant" rather than a literal interpretation of my query. It's not perfect but neither are my queries.
And I would be willing to be substantial sums of money that any metrics Google has with respect to "adding value to the user" are actually more directly track "adding value to the business".
If, on average, users perceive more value from Google, they use Google more, and Google earns more ad rev. Even if this lowers value substantially for the "relative few".
It's basic utilitarianism, and it sucks to be in the "relative few"...
I too, wish that quotes were respected, and Google would stop giving results for what it thinks I meant to search for like it knows what I meant better than I do - even if that is the case...sometimes.
Right now maximizing the number of searches people preform even if it degrades overall search quality is probably the goal.
Not the user. To Google.
Marginal search results adds value for Google because it keeps people searching, which is how Google makes its money. If you find what you want, you stop feeding money into Google.
Google can do this because it has a virtual monopoly on search. If a strong competitor were to emerge, Google couldn't play these revenue optimization games, and would have to go back to being a search engine.
I usually use ddg but I do find google useful for the more weird queries I have.