> The notion that more click bait improves Google's bottom line is absurd
If you don't find what you're looking for on the first try, you'll need to try again, and see more ads. What else are you going to do, go elsewhere, visit a library, ask the town elders or give up on looking for things you want to know? You don't have a choice, you know it, they know it.
I find it equally plausible that Youtube's search sucks badly because they don't care what you're looking for, they want you to watch videos that they predict will lead to the maximum time spent on the site, again so you watch more ads. What other explanation is there that the world's leading search engine has the search of one of their flagship products run at 1999 quality? Presumably they have giant teams of people working on that too?