Back when "SEO" was new, I would read the Matt Cutts blog. He was head of "anti-spam." I remember thinking back then that anti-spam was an ignorant frame.
Once Google gained importance, websites started trying to improve their rankings. That might mean migrating from Flash to HTML. It might mean meta-tags, content, keyword stuffing, link collecting... paying a consultant.
Google's early view/advice seemed to be: "Just ignore rankings. You do your thing, makes your site as useful you can. We'll do our thing: judging your site algorithmically and deciding how to rank it." Websites intentionally trying to improve rankings was ipso facto spam. The very idea of SEO was spam.
Naturally, cracks appeared. Flash and embedded images was an early one. Google's initial position was: "HTML is better for users." They thought websites should use clean HTML regardless of rankings. No contradictions need be confronted
Once a two sided conversation starts, that crack becomes a wedge. It becomes clear that website owners don't care about the usability of plain html text. Usability doesn't matter until you have users... and users come from Google. The "language" of SEO continued developing in this disingenuous way. Google pretended to be giving tips about accessibility or content, that tangentially also improve rankings. Websites pretended that their keyword stuffing was about usability or whatnot.
Google have been carrying this culture of euphemisation for almost 20 years now. Elephants stampede all over the meeting room. Everyone tries hard to pretend they don't hear the deafening trumpeting.
Youtube is an even more extreme example. Google's algorithms, policies and processes throw an entire media industry around, while Google pretend these are just minor side effects, or that it isn't happening. The gaslighting is awful.