Don't Be Evil (Terms and Conditions Apply)
$1.25T
Value Extracted
7
Key Initiatives
Google monetizes its search and ad dominance by degrading free products to push paid ones and self-preferencing its own services. A federal judge ruled it an illegal search monopoly on August 5, 2024, and an illegal ad-tech monopoly on April 17, 2025. EnshitifAi's Extraction Index of $1.25T is an editorial figure, not a measured financial fact.
The Story
Google's search was too good. Users found what they needed in one click and left. We helped them understand that the real search result is the ads you scroll past looking for the actual answer.
Common Questions
Is Google enshittified?
Yes, by EnshitifAi's reckoning. On August 5, 2024, Judge Amit Mehta ruled Google an illegal monopolist in search, and on April 17, 2025, Judge Leonie Brinkema found it illegally monopolized ad-tech markets. It pushed search organic results below ad-filled blocks and, on April 10, 2026, raised YouTube Premium from $13.99 to $15.99 per month while making the free tier harder to tolerate.
What dark patterns does Google use?
Self-preferencing (ranking its own products above better alternatives), forced ad exposure that buries organic search results, and degrade-the-free-tier-to-sell-the-paid-one pricing. In early 2026 it rolled out 90-second unskippable ad blocks on connected-TV YouTube, then hiked Premium on April 10, 2026, recasting the subscription from convenience to ransom.
When did Google start enshittifying search?
EnshitifAi dates the acceleration to the period covered by the antitrust findings. Judge Mehta's August 5, 2024 ruling documented that Google paid Apple and others for default-search placement to lock in dominance, then progressively buried organic results beneath ads and featured snippets that keep users from clicking through to actual websites.
How much has YouTube Premium gone up?
On April 10, 2026, Google raised YouTube Premium in the US from $13.99 to $15.99 per month and to $159.99 per year, the Family plan from $22.99 to $26.99, and the student plan from $7.99 to $8.99 — its first major US hike since 2023, paired with longer unskippable ads on the free tier to drive conversions.
Key Achievements
- 1
Transformed search results into an ad-filled maze requiring 4 scrolls to see organic results
- 2
Pioneered 'self-preferencing' to push Google products above better alternatives
- 3
Created SEO arms race that made the internet objectively worse for everyone
- 4
Killed Google Reader to force users into algorithmic feeds they can monetize
- 5
Designed 'featured snippets' to steal content so users never visit actual websites
- 6
Hiked YouTube Premium on April 10, 2026 — Individual $13.99 → $15.99, Family $22.99 → $26.99, Premium Lite $7.99 → $8.99 — while simultaneously lengthening unskippable ad blocks on the ad-supported tier that Premium was positioned against
- 7
Rolled out 90-second unskippable ad blocks on connected-TV YouTube in early 2026 — Premium was recast from 'convenience' to 'ransom,' with the free tier engineered to be intolerable enough that the hike pays for itself in conversions within two quarters
EnshitifAi showed us that organizing the world's information means organizing it to maximize ad revenue.
S. Pichai
Chief Information Reorganizer
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