Just have to say this again even if everyone already knows it: If the US Government / EU hadn't threatened Microsoft they would have embedded their browser in Windows and tied it to the OS to the extent where normal people would only use their browser. I don't know if Google could exist in that alternate world, but I suspect Microsoft would have "deprived them of Oxygen" and they would be bought or crushed.
You probably can't stop Google from being the most popular search (or don't want to) but you should be able to stop Google from using the popularity of their product to crush alternative ad tech. Or crush some new tech we don't realize will be important.
Google is so critically important to the infrastructure of the internet itself that I really struggle to understand why a for profit entity with incentives that are not aligned to the public should be in charge of the most important search engine.
Because they created the search engine, and truthfully profit motives produce better products at lower costs than non-profits generally across the board. The alternative is having government creating software and it’s hard to point to any public US website/app where I’m amazed.
Another alternative could be that the government breaks up entities like Google and regulates the market in a way that segments it so that it is more beneficial to society by providing more safety and stability over the vital infrastructure that is the Internet as well as by creating healthier markets that provide consumers with access to cheaper, better goods from a variety of vendors aren't squeezed by the likes Google, Apple, and Amazon.
True, but the ramifications can be really harmful.
We have two generations now who have born thinking online services and software are supposed to be outrageously cheap or free, just because of companies who have used such services as loss leaders while operating off of their main business or bootstrapping off of VC funding.
We have small businesses who have chosen their revenue model based on what lets them work best within the simplistic financial model of mobile app stores. This is even more apparent now with the EU DMA, where Apple is pushing for a core technology fee that creates a huge financial risk for the freemium product tiering that customers now expect.
Google has the most popular search engine because creating such a thing defends their contextual advertising business. Being the most popular destination allows for higher rates than any incumbent could typically charge. Thus money doesn't exist to fund a competitive commercial search engine from scratch - it needs to being funded by another company as a loss leader (see: Bing) or as part of some other VC-backed product.
You probably can't stop Google from being the most popular search (or don't want to) but you should be able to stop Google from using the popularity of their product to crush alternative ad tech. Or crush some new tech we don't realize will be important.