The way Google defends its income stream against that is simple: They allow your competitors to buy ads on your own names and trademarks, then you're forced to do so as well because otherwise your organic link is below the ads. It used to be that it mattered since only dumb users would click the ads. But now that they're unshaded and look 99% identical, only super nerds bypass ads. Meaning your #1 organic result is basically only good for bragging rights and nothing more if there's anyone willing to pay even a small amount to jump up above you.

Wouldn’t having strong SEO incentive competition to buy ads? Of course it also incentives them to work on SEO, but the only way to ‘get above’ a top ranking site would be to buy an ad, no?

Increasing costs for your competition is a net win for you.

And Google

Depends on the industry, but if you can profit at lower prices you can force your competition to spend less on advertising. That’s bad for Google.

That makes sense. I meant increasing the ad buy spend of a firm's competitors helps Google