They're paying right and left to be the default search option, aren't they?

Plus to be honest alternatives aren't much better. I use duckduckgo but the results are still a deluge of spam (content mills).

Business momentum goes a long way, especially with Google being near monopoly status in their advertising. If you're flying at 50,000 feet and the engines fall off the plane it may be a long time before you the customer feel the impact. We can only guess Google is in a panic trying to figure out how they'll make their numbers next quarter and looking for something else to enshittify to increase profits in the meantime.