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When it comes to search,Googleis a monopoly.
That’s the ruling from aUS federal judge who called Google a “monopolist.
Web Search was a critical and, for a time, a varied industry.
Google wasn’t even there at the start.
Sure, it spidered and indexed, but it also weighted for relevancy.
The story of how Google came to dominate is almost obvious and well-known.
The question that this ruling appears to answer is how, after winning the battle, Google maintained control.
Race for the top
No market, especially those in technology, is written in stone.
Players come and go.
New ideas arrive, and sometimes they stick.
Sometimes, they grow while others fall.
Competition can feel like a zero-sum game because there are almost always winners and losers.
Search was like that at the start, where even the once-vauntedYahoo stumbledand fell before Google.
This is not to say that there is no competition.
Sometimes, they can do it with innovation and maybe a bit of luck.
The price of domination
That relationship has continued not because Apple and Google are friends.
Apple eventually replaced Google’s mapping system with one of its own.
In 2022, it wasa reported $20B.
This is no small thing.
There are currently over 1.3B iPhones in use.
At least95% of people use a mobile equipment to browse and search the web.
The default is the winner by default.
Google, ‘Monopoly’
Google currently has91% worldwide search engine market share.
I guess the question is, did Google come by that dominance fairly?
I think it did.
Has it held onto it fairly?
No one does Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for DuckDuckGo or Yahoo.
Now might also turn out to be the perfect time forSearchGPT.
At the very least, you might soon see a change when you set up your nextbest iPhoneorbest Android.
Perhaps the rig will finally ask you to choose a search engine.
Naturally, you’ll still choose Google.
I mean, who wouldn’t?
