I’ve been trying to make this point here on HN and elsewhere for quite a while now, but you said it so much more eloquently than me!

I see this as a variant of the tragedy of the commons: in this case it is the reputation and market share of Google Search.

Each individual at Google is incentivised to feed their own cow… err… career at the expense of the commons: Google’s reputation.

Inevitably this will destroy Google, but this will take many years of accumulated damage to build up to a catastrophic point.

    “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. 
    “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually
    and then suddenly.”