I recall that there were similarly motivated lawsuits for the earlier answer boxes that used to appear (prior to direct genai injection into the SERP page). What ever happened with those? Finding it difficult to search for.

In the 19th century, industrial magnates and politicians would pay for "press cuttings" or clipping services that summarized the news of the day for them. Even today, wealthy individuals will pay secretaries and assistants to do the same.

Google has just reduced the barrier to entry and given that capability to anyone and everyone.

It's their business model that's broken—not Google's news summary service.