That's if you want to capture someone's focus, not their attention.

If you capture their focus, are you not also capturing their attention?

Yes, but not necessarily the other way around.

I'm not saying one is necessarily better than the other, but I think the 2 different UIs are serving 2 different goals. Focus requires commitment at some level, and I don't think most websites are predicated on the notion that the average user is committed, at least initially. Maybe once you make a sale to them and they get access to your product you can safely prioritize focus because you now have that commitment.

I think engineers generally are above average on the skill of summoning focus, as you kind of need it in order to perform math, analysis, and logic.

It’s more about selling someone’s attention than holding it. The best possible outcome for both websites and Google is for a user to click on on a website from search and then immediately click on an ad. To the extent you find the site useful and don’t need what’s being advertised, that’s a fail for both of them.

More like they monetise it at the expense of maintaining it.