Google wanted to be an Answer Machine before ChatGPT hence "I'm Feeling Lucky" button but road to there is long and hard. I think the biggest Google's problems are SEO spam often coupled with scams and fraud and last but not least, lack of transparency on how exactly they rank their search results.
I don't think we should pretend that google doesn't have the power to crush spam today if it wanted to. They have chosen to let scrappers have top spots in their search results and their reputation is dying as a result.
