US alleges Google got rich because people stick with search defaults | Hacker News Reader

US alleges Google got rich because people stick with search defaults

reuters.com

24 pointsmfiguiere15 comments

Google pays billions to Apple to be the default search engine on Apple devices, and pays billions to the US Carriers to be the default search engine on Android phones they sell. They wouldn't do that if they didn't feel they needed to...

> feel they needed to...

Or rather felt the monetary benefit greater than the cost.

It's not necessarily about need but rather maximization.

(Alleged) monopolies aren't maintained by doing nothing.

Didn't Google have the majority share in search engines before they started paying to be the default (~early 2000s)?

No according to this dataset [1] about US search engine marketshare

[1] https://datahub.io/rufuspollock/search-engine-market-shares

The link you've given shows Google had the majority of market share by October 2004, which is in line with what the parent comment states (at least the way I parse it).

What were they paying to be default on prior to October 2004? Smartphones didn't exist, Firefox didn't exist, Internet Explorer didn't have a dedicated UI element that led you to a search engine.

Are we talking about software that made Google the default home page? IE Toolbars? Feature phones like the Blackberry?

I was active on the Internet since the late 90s, but I only remember having to type "www.google.com" prior to 2005, but I'm certainly no means an expert.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Desktop

To be fair, I don't know if they actually had to pay anyone.

Google Desktop was not released before October 2004 though.

And even then, what was its significance on the general desktop space? I used it heavily, but I didn't know anyone else who had it installed.

I agree, Google got rich by having the best product. Now they are staying rich because people will stick with the default as long as there isn't a head-and-shoulders about the rest better option.

Chatgpt like competitors will take down google search

including Bard and Gemini?

Chatgpt is a parody.

Some people need precise answers not propaganda.

Google’s window of having the best product closed over a decade ago.

Payola schemes been keeping them afloat since mobile took off. App stores would have become the new default search for a solution engine.

> I agree, Google got rich by having the best product

no. There were better search engines (altavista, yahoo). Google was the most agressive.

I've been thinking about this. When I'm hungry in the evening I go to Jack in the Box. JitB isn't the best. It's pretty low quality and the restaurants are gross. But JitB paid money for access to open a restaurant closest to me. That seems the same as Google.

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