Yeah, this is the context here. The trend was to have these super dense home pages with all sorts of overwhelming noise, like the Yahoo home page:

Google was remarkable for bucking that trend, and basically still does have that ultra focused home page. It’s not that now Google shows you ads and a weather widget in the search results-- it’s that it’s got the good sense to at least wait until you search for something.

Not to detract from the enshittification-themed comments or anything. Please do carry on, fellows.