Also, Google displays their own ads in these results, so it's not like visitors who may go to a site with ads are somehow relieved of this annoyance by using Google.

There's a difference between organizing the world's information, and becoming the source of the world's information. Traditionally Google has been a card catalog—you want to find something, they'll tell you where to find it. Now they're trying to become the encyclopedia.

> that's better for everybody, including Wikimedia who don't have to pay to serve the query

If you're a site that makes money via serving webpages, then preventing you from serving those web pages costs money, not saves money.

The underlying principle is "Am I an organizer of information, or a source of information?"

Or for how content sources will look at it: "Do they help people find me, or do they compete against me by stealing my content and my customers?"

You are, I submit, forcing a distinction because you wish it rather than because it makes sense.

I'm forcing a distinction, because in one case they work with the companies that they index, and in the other case they work against those companies, by stealing their information and displaying it with their own ads.