If you really like Skillet X, and I ask you which skillet I should buy, and you tell me, "Skillet X," then it is not an ad.

If you really like Skillet X, then somebody gives you $5 to recommend it if anybody asks you what skillet to buy, and then when I ask, you tell me, "Skillet X...I mean you should know that somebody gave me $5 to say that to you but honestly I was going to say that anyway" then is it an ad?

It kinda intuitively feels to me like if it doesn't alter the result, it's not an ad, it's just somebody taking advantage of another person's willingness to hand them money and doing nothing in return.

The definition: "If Google [meaning Google's organic results] delivers users the thing they want"

The consequence: "ads have to be things users don't want" because advertisers whose product is wanted will be included whether they pay or not.

Now, you could widen it to say, look Google is still delivering the thing users want, they just sometimes do it by organic results and sometimes do it by ads, but that's a very convoluted reading of the definition, which clearly is using Google as a stand in for "Google's organic results".

The problem with my argument isn't that it failed to be a tautology. It's that the definition is questionable, and that's the profitable angle of attack: "users don't know what they want" "there can be multiple equally good options" etc. But saying it's not by definition is just silly. The definition is the whole thing up for debate!

In reality, Google is not perfect and you can argue that ads do provide value by promoting relevant content, even if its gameable by our capitalist system.