When I worked at a biglaw firm a few years back, we were told that the shelf-price of one of these wide searches was upwards of $800 for the firm and we were encouraged to narrow down the search as much as possible. The cost for recovering a single case: $6. They didn't actually pay these fees and had an umbrella agreement, but the cost of this umbrella agreement was determined by how widely the firm searched.

However you look at this, this is a big blow to Lexis/Westlaw and their monopoly position has taken quite a hit. I agree that they add a ton of value and will still be around, but its hard to overstate how big of a deal this is.

Its especially big for non-profit legal clinics and independent lawyers practicing on their own, which had difficulty doing any sort of legal research without coming to an agreement with one of these duopoly actors.