This exact thing right here is why I keep wondering if we're looking at totally different things. I assure you zero of my incredulity is "performative". I guess I'll just quote what I see when I click the link. Brackets to indicate highlighting by Krebs. Paragraphs numbered for reference.

>>>
Title: Why we sell advertising, not search results.

(1)[In a world where everything seems to be for sale, why can't advertisers buy better position in our search results?]

(2)The answer is simple. We believe you should be able to trust what you find using Google. [From the beginning, our approach to search has been to provide the most relevant answers and results to our users.]

(3)(I think I can omit the paragraph that's just google describing how they arrive at search results and their claim that they're not tainted by money changing hands, right?)

(4)[And while we believe relevant ads can be as useful as actual search results, we don't want anyone to be confused about which is which.]

(5)Every ad on Google is clearly marked and set apart from the actual search results. While advertisers can pay more to be displayed higher in the advertising area, [no one can buy better placement in the search results themselves]. Moreover, ads are only displayed if they're relevant to the search terms you entered. That means you only see ads that are actually useful.

(6)Some online services don't believe the distinction between search results and advertising is all that important.

(7)We do.

>>>

1. Google says you cannot buy better search result positioning from them. (well, you can, but more on that later)

2. Because users trusting results is important. (OK)

3. (sure, OK)

4. They absofuckinglutely do want you to be confused. This is not true. They behaved differently in the past when, maybe, it was true, including in the early days of inline ads with results. It is not true now. This is probably highlighted because it's hilariously false, right?

5. They are not clearly marked (now). The distinction between buying a top-placed ad that a huge percentage of users will think is a search result, and buying better search result placement, is grade A bullshit. This is the equivocation.

6. Yeah, like Google.

7. They do not.

[EDIT] I was wrong that Krebs doesn't post in the responses. He does, writing this: "And this is how it looked like in the past (taken from HN). Ads were markedly distinct, both visually and in placement." The screenshot highlights both sidebar ads and visually-distinct inline ads above the results. I see nothing to support your assertion that "Adrian Krebs, who wrote the tweet, is not claiming ads and search results are the same thing, contrary to the insistence of many here who think they are speaking for him. Instead, he is treating ads and search as truly distinguishable things but makes a point about the placement of ads relative to search." The reading of this overall thing as his making the point that Google have so blurred the lines between their above-the-results ads and the results themselves that they're effectively doing exactly the thing they say they don't seems entirely unambiguous to me.

[EDIT EDIT] I worked out a way to obtain your reading—or, at least what I think your reading is. If you assume that Krebs mis-read the very short and clear document that he took time to highlight, embed, and tweet (as quoted above—I'm assuming the highlighting was his) then this: "The post critiques the practice of displaying ads above search results, a method used by some of Google's competitors back then." isn't just an accurate-enough but (perhaps) imperfectly precise phrasing, but simply wrong, and everything else related to it including how ~everyone here and on Twitter read it is wrong (=correct for a funny and the-most-obvious critique of the document vs. reality, but wrong for what Krebs intention was under your reading), and you assume that Krebs either didn't notice that everyone was getting it wrong or decided to pretend that's what he meant, and you assume he only intended to showcase part of the image he re-posted from here, then your reading prevails.

I do not judge this a strong reading, at all.