Thanks for an interesting article, Daniel. It would seem that the root of Google’s struggle is the inevitable tension between users and advertisers. Those paying for slots want to be featured, so this means removing things that users would benefit from, in order to prevent overload of the screen. But at some point users will begin to defect, so Google can’t totally optimize for advertisers. It’s natural that the company will oscillate between these competing tensions, never able to reach equilibrium because the desires of both groups and potential alternatives don’t remain constant. It’s an interesting example of the constraints of the “ad revenues are what keep the lights on” model.