Current search trends, and which results get clicked for which queries, are still intrinsically valuable. Mostly for the search index signals as you mention, and other things like updating recrawl rates, etc.

Even for established players these have value because the index gets stale quickly for certain queries that many people care about a lot. Even though that value isn't fungible, or enough to break even if it were, it's the kind of value that keeps the search engine competitive.