I know they don't design software just for me. The truth is, they design software for themselves. All of it is designed to get more information they can use to market us. But taking away functionality in the guise of "improvement" is never a good idea. Forcing on us a system that forces you to talk to the phone, instead of supporting typing, should have been seen as a bad idea to the least intelligent Google designer. And I'm sorry, but the Google Now launcher just sucks compared to Nova Prime, so switching to that would be another step backward.
People on these forums scream bloody murder about Samsung, or Verizon, forcing software on us. But when Google does it, oh well, then it's just the way it is. Screw that. Google is a purveyor of bloatware as much as any other vendor. My phone is full of Google software that I never used, but can't delete.
Even as a "search product" this is a step backwards. Assistant's efforts to guess at what I really want are less accurate and less useful than just doing a Google search. If it's going to evolve, fine, but don't force everyone to use it until it has "evolved." The point of software is supposed to be to provide a benefit to me. This only provides a benefit to Google.