Illustration: The Verge
We’ve been covering big changes to Google and Google Search very closely here on Decoder and The Verge. There’s a good reason for that: the entire business of the modern web is built around Google.
It’s a whole ecosystem. Websites get traffic from Google Search, they all get built to work in Google Chrome, and Google dominates the stack of advertising technologies that turn all of it into money. It’s honestly been challenging to explain just how Google operates as a platform, because it’s so large, pervasive, and dominant that it’s almost invisible.
But if you think about it another way — considering the relationship YouTubers have to YouTube or TikTokers have to the TikTok algorithm — it starts to become clear. The entire web is…
