That "$20B to replicate Google" estimate doesn't hold up in the current LLM regime. OpenAI, Perplexity, (and to a lesser extent, Exa) have shown you can reach or even exceed parity in user experience for many searches. Limit the operational focus to US users (~20% of world internet traffic, but the majority of search advertising value) and you cut your opex massively. If something brings down Google I suspect it won't be government action or AI competition, but rather the cultural rot that's set in after decades of dominance due to monopoly power, not competitive excellence.
It’s also worth considering that a Trump DoJ may be less interested in pursuing remedies instigated under the Biden admin. There are a lot of unknowns about the ultimate impact of this decision at present.
Isn't Bing problem that Bing offers me too and nothing different? Bing can spend all it wants but if it has nothing radically different in terms of search, then I do not see how that is Google's problem - default browser or not.
Could an antitrust ruling that forces Google to stop paying for being the default search engine be a boon for ... Google?
$26b more in their pocket + it will give a chance for users to experience Bing and then CONSCIOUSLY install Google as the default search engine + less money for Apple to build its own engine
This neatly summarises the ruling and it will be interesting to see what will be the remedies implemented for that. Adding to the last point if Apple builds it own engine then this might become a serious threat to Google.
That "$20B to replicate Google" estimate doesn't hold up in the current LLM regime. OpenAI, Perplexity, (and to a lesser extent, Exa) have shown you can reach or even exceed parity in user experience for many searches. Limit the operational focus to US users (~20% of world internet traffic, but the majority of search advertising value) and you cut your opex massively. If something brings down Google I suspect it won't be government action or AI competition, but rather the cultural rot that's set in after decades of dominance due to monopoly power, not competitive excellence.
It’s also worth considering that a Trump DoJ may be less interested in pursuing remedies instigated under the Biden admin. There are a lot of unknowns about the ultimate impact of this decision at present.
Isn't Bing problem that Bing offers me too and nothing different? Bing can spend all it wants but if it has nothing radically different in terms of search, then I do not see how that is Google's problem - default browser or not.
The argument was that by paying for default payments (which only Google could at the level they did) they blocked off competition
Could an antitrust ruling that forces Google to stop paying for being the default search engine be a boon for ... Google?
$26b more in their pocket + it will give a chance for users to experience Bing and then CONSCIOUSLY install Google as the default search engine + less money for Apple to build its own engine
Yes, I touched on that near the end! It could hurt Apple more than Google haha
This neatly summarises the ruling and it will be interesting to see what will be the remedies implemented for that. Adding to the last point if Apple builds it own engine then this might become a serious threat to Google.