I think the quality will keep improving, because humans will keep curating the training data to compete for best results. The downside is that "quality" is conflated with "performs best for a particular audience and platform" which could just as easily mean re-ingesting junk and spitting it back out... because that's what people respond to.
I see lots of “google is evil” narrative here… in reality they could add a feature to collect spam flags and still disregard user preferences. It’s just that the data will probably not help them, since adversaries are much more motivated to manipulate it for SEO profit than the average user who is unlikely to repeat that search
I was a Pivot - this article rings true. When I first joined people would often describe with joy how exhausted they were every single day for months when they first joined, as though it was evidence of learning and growth. That’s only true sometimes. What I realized is that it doesn’t actually stop being exhausting, people just adapt. There is a difference between being tired because I applied myself, did something meaningful and useful, and learned something new, compared to just being tired from navigating personal interactions all day every day.
Google can't say this directly; forcing people to use your upsell for preferential treatment is likely anti-competitive. Instead, Google ranks on page speed (among many many factors), and then offer a proprietary tool (AMP) that promises to help.