The red space in the image above is where Google puts organic search results:

"The screenshot is 1280x960 pixels (a typical resolution for a 13" wide-screen laptop and some older 15"s). The search results take up 535x425 pixels, which makes it 18.5% of the window..."

Ad/Results ratio is almost 4-to-1 by area.

Worse, only 11% of the total links on the page are the actual search results.

Ouch.

See also how Google search results changed from 2008 to 2012.

So does this show a company struggling?

That's not how I read it.

I read it as Google having tested the daylights out of what consumers will tolerate, and moving its products to that threshold.

Interesting...

Cutts said, “We actually think our ads can be as helpful as the search results in some cases...

I believe they truly believe that.