Do they though? I mean, bing exists, sure, but it's inferior and more expensive (by lacking quality). Hey, you can switch to satellite telephony/internet or connect two tin cans with a string if you really want to get off of your mobile provider.
> cellular internet doesn't work for all the people in areas with bad cellular reception to begin with
But the majority of US citizens have a choice, right, the population centers do have multiple carriers?
For example if I wanted to purchase internet, I have a choice of two providers. If I don't choose either of those two, I cannot have internet.
For search providers, I have a choice among a much larger variety. Google may have larger market share, but you're not locked into using Google like you are with your ISP.
There's a difference between having multiple potentially inferior choices and only having two choices full stop. In my experience living across multiple states now you don't have a choice of ISP.
I'm from EU, Google has 95%++ market share here and there are not other serious options (besides Google's resellers, which are a bit slower, and not quite as good, but close). Bing exists, but the quality is abysmal, so it really isn't an option, just as satellite internet probably isn't for most US states (I assume - it is an option in Europe, albeit not a great one).
If you ignore the price, you have plenty of options for wired internet: hire a company to lay fiber straight to your home, connect it to a data center on the other end. Price and quality are the big factors in whether something is an alternative. Dial up or GPRS isn't an alternative to broadband, not because it's much more expensive, but because of the quality of service. Satellite internet can provide you with all the bandwidth you need, where ever you need it, but the price is prohibitive.
I do agree with you though: saying money isn't an issue when looking for alternatives is absurd. You can pretty much solve anything by throwing money at it. "You have an option if you consider it an option to pay 10x or 100x the price" misses the point entirely imho.
Would breaking google into 4 companies give us 4 googles or 4 bings? Considering that the more data you have, the better your results, it seems like winner take all is the norm in any sort of data-driven tech.