No one is ever to blame for anything in economics. The ad industry isn’t a person or thing with any ethics bound to it. It’s just a creation of the market. You may as well try blaming the air for being responsible for tornados.
The only solution is to try to build a new system that can’t be abused.
Seems a little harsh. People would be trying to game the search results with or without the metrics.
They're just selling a shovel though. The ad industry and its money is the root cause behind the gold rush, not the shovel seller.