I'm not sure I agree that the people doing the search are the customers here
Google Search's users are people who do the searching.
If a service is free to use, you are the product.
people using google's free services to see those google results that have gone to shit since the past 10 years or so, and also are full page of ads without ad blockers, are google's product, which is acquired through offering free product and services that hook those customers to stay hooked even through the enshittification that has proceeded on those since the web 2.0 golden era
For a turd sandwich to work, you have to wrap your turd (ads) with high quality results so people actually search on Google and then you can show them the turd along with the good stuff.
somewhat google is happy to serve you turd they can double dip on