This is probably one of the most relevant examples of what people are complaining about, but my biggest problem is that I still don't know what you could say the alternative is, or where these rich search results should stop.

Searching for "airline price comparisons" on Google, I get nothing but search results for a dozen different price comparison sites, with the top result being Kayak.com. Google flights didn't even appear for me.

Searching for something more specific, like "flight price from new york to miami," now I start seeing rich search results using Google Flights, followed by links to Kayak, etc.

My problem is that I'm wondering how many people are searching that way. I would imagine that most people are going to sites like kayak.com first, then searching for the flights they want.

But even if they aren't, there's cases where I would be pissed if I didn't get the rich search results that I get from Google. If I search for a business in my town, I'm expecting to see a map and the phone number. What's the alternative? Should Google remove that map and only provide links? Then I find the service less useful. Would Microsoft have to do the same, given that they offer the exact same information on their search engine?

My problem is that in all this discussion, I've only seen a focus on the hypothetical impact to Google's competitors. I've never seen anyone talking about what this all means for consumers. I would not feel well-served if Google was forced to change how their products worked just because people liked them more.

Besides, who really uses Google Shopping?