The real killer is that Google perfected the ad-paid model, and launched an entire ecosystem on top of it

Paid competitors cannot compete because people won't pay. People want the death of Google because people hate ads and tracking.

Ultimately it is an everyone loses situation. No one is going to fly in a replace Google without either 1.) Charging a monthly sub or 2.) Invasive (yet most profitable) ad tracking.

This is exactly why youtube stands alone too. What company looks at youtube's userbase and says "Yes, I want to cater to people who despise subscriptions and block ads". Exactly what vid.me did in 2017, which everyone celebrated until the went bankrupt.