>> The "improve life for customers" stuff is all fluff that you might read in a training manual alongside photos of happy employees playing ping pong at work.

I'd say Google is redefining the word "customers". What they really mean is users. Customers are traditionally those who pay for products or services. I'm sure Google also makes things easy for those who pay them, but that's not who they mean by "customers".

If I'm not mistaken the GoogleSpeak word for "companies we extort money from to maintain relevance in search results" is probably "partners".