So they're allowed to waste my time and earn a kickback, as long as they give me a free cab ride from their kickback to where I wanted to go in the first place?

That sounds like it only works if my time that they wasted for selfish gain is valued at $0, which is obviously true as far as they are concerned, but certainly isn't true to me.

I don't defend dark patterns, it obviously is one there, but your time is worth zero when you pay zero. The analogy would be free taxi drivers taking your to their kicking back spots first. If your time is worth X, spend X. It may prove a bit difficult since the paid search engine marketplace isn't thriving. How much would you be willing to pay for a search engine that only displays organic results? There are actually free solutions easy to set up to get that from Google results, but I'm wondering since you mention value of time.

That's a very spot-on question. How much would people pay for advertising-free results? I suspect the answer is disillusioning :(

(Also, I did not intend to imply you were supporting or defending dark patterns — my apologies.)