I work for an e-commerce company. This absolutely brutalized our sales until we made significant changes to our layout.
I understand that this instance is seen as a net positive for the end user, but Google should not have the power to force websites to conform to whatever Google decides is the new standard, or become irrelevant.
The end user should be deciding what is and isn't worthwhile content, or where to shop, or what have you. Not Google.
What kind of ecommerce company? I do a lot of work in the sector.
Your business is dependent on Google for traffic. You can embrace it and be beholden to platform rules, or you can build a direct audience and brand. The latter is hard but more defensible and there are many case studies to follow of other companies doing this.
If people come in through Google because they are searching for something and instead of arriving at the content that was advertised in search results, see a content covering popup, that's not really informed decision making. I think Google has legitimate right to rank sites that do this lower.
If users heard there were better results elsewhere though, they would switch from Google. However, it is more likely that by doing this Google prevents itself from being taken over by a competitor that creates this feature.
I understand that this instance is seen as a net positive for the end user, but Google should not have the power to force websites to conform to whatever Google decides is the new standard, or become irrelevant.
The end user should be deciding what is and isn't worthwhile content, or where to shop, or what have you. Not Google.