I would argue that this is less an example of why linking out may be bad for engagement and more an example of google abusing its intermediary/market position to keep users on their own pages longer

I'd argue that a user not having to click through is clearly a better result for the user, and that alone would be sufficient motivation to do it.

In terms of a single search, I don't think Google really benefits from preventing a click-through - the journey is over once the user has their information. If anything, making them click through to an ad-infested page would probably get a few fractions of a cent extra given how deeply Google is embedded in the ads ecosystem.

But giving the user the result faster means they're more likely to come back when they need the next piece of information, and give them more time to search for the next information. That benefits Google, but only because it benefits the user.

That'd be all fine if google produced that content, but since it doesn't, once they kill off the website, what happens to the quality of their snippets? Then the user has only shitty snippets that are out of date.

That's the kind if short-sighted view that's the root issue in a ton of enshittification happening around: the belief that short-term gains or benefits are all it's about. It's not sustainable to leech off of wikipedia content to fuel your own (ad in Google's) knowledge pop-ups, even if it benefits the user in that they save a single click, because that means long-term wikipedia will die out because users no longer associate the knowledge gained with wikipedia but with Google even though they had nothing to do with it apart from "stealing it".

In my niche these links are all going to indian scam sites for years and years. Right now can google "taehyung" one of the largest kpop idols and see it live. Count the indian links that have been dominating without any particular expertise thanks to google's changes (indian scammer site kickbacks etc)