> (e.g. approximately nobody who is receiving them is paying for those summaries at the top of search results)

Nobody is paying for Search. According to Google's earnings reports - AI Overviews is increasing overall clicks on ads and overall search volume.

So, apparently switching to Kagi continues to pay in dividends, elegantly.

No ads, no forced AI overview, no profit centric reordering of results, plus being able to reorder results personally, and more.