Sure, but when Google have been starting out they didn’t have to compete with...Google (as it is today). While companies that would like to enter the market now have to. And Google has a massive competitive advantage: their data and their scale. Not saying that regulation will necessarily help, and it’s not Google’s fault that they’re so good, but it’s silly not to admit that it’s hard to enter the search market today.
Now DDG is interesting. Their results are noticeably worse (YMMV). But they are using privacy as the selling point. I wonder if you can possibly have results as good as Google’s, or be as big and profitable as Google, while maintaining user’s privacy. I guess we’ll find out.