Didn't Google have the majority share in search engines before they started paying to be the default (~early 2000s)?
Some people need precise answers not propaganda.
Payola schemes been keeping them afloat since mobile took off. App stores would have become the new default search for a solution engine.
no. There were better search engines (altavista, yahoo). Google was the most agressive.
[1] https://datahub.io/rufuspollock/search-engine-market-shares
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.
To be fair, I don't know if they actually had to pay anyone.
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.