They’re after views, that’s always the end goal. More views=more revenue. It’s the youtubers that are after engagement, because engagement is a good measure of something that will get a lot of views and thus gets pushed by the algorithm.

Google wants money. Views get them money. Engagement helps predict an offering that will get more views, and thus they should feed it to more people. They’re right also, it is an accurate predictor. If we don’t want them to do what makes them the most money, that is our responsibility to fix, not theirs.