Again, then why are people using Google more than ever?

I don't really see how "dead internet theory" explains that. If it were as bad as you claim, surely usage would be plummeting? But it's just the opposite.

Are you sure it’s _people_ driving this increase?

Dead internet theory means real users are declining while bot users are skyrocketing.

For example google search is such a terrible experience these days that I’ll often ask an LLM instead.

That LLM may do multiple google and other searches on my behalf, combine, collate and present me with just the information I am looking for, bypassing the search experience entirely.

This is a fundamentally different use case from human traffic.