Google wants to sell ads -- they need the search traffic.

If you give stuff away people come, that's a proven fact.

The whole search industry is a symbiosis -- this is not a new thing ...

antagonistic symbiosis antipathetic symbiosis, which the association is
disadvantageous or destructive to one of the organisms,
but ordinarily it is used of cases where the association
is advantageous, or often necessary, to one or both, and
not harmful to either