I agree. In all likelihood, the decisions were made gradually to improve overall efficiency without losing search volume, but the unintended consequence was to degrade search quality, at first gradually in subtle ways, and then suddenly in very noticeable ways.[a] It's possible no one in the company's executive team has noticed the loss of quality. In fact, they may not think anything's wrong even now.

[a] I'm paraphrasing Ernest Hemingway: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/102579-how-did-you-go-bankr...