Google is a driving force behind the destruction of the web. They like the content they do not like the links. The best way for the web to develop from Googles point of view is if we all consume just the content that Google forwards us to without horizontal bridges between pages. So that's why you will see Google push to reduce the importance of URLs and why Google will - shamelessly - lift content of other websites and display it as their own as the result of a query on the results page rather than to link to the site that they took the content from to begin with.

> They like the content they do not like the links.

I'm not disagreeing with your appraisal - in fact I probably agree with it - but I do find it deeply and painfully ironic to read, given the entire foundation of Google's being - PageRank - is based on analyses of the web of other people's links.

It seems like the parasite doesn't realise the damage it's causing the host.

This phenomenon has been discussed to some degree; here's an article about the changing web and who benefits from it and what we've lost in the process:

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/social-networks-apps-killing-o...