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Google paid a whopping $26.3 billion in 2021 to be the default search engine everywhere
(www.theverge.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I dunno on one side we have Google trying to wreck the entire internet and have their ads in your face 95 percent of the time.
On the other side is Microsoft who won't leave you the hell alone when pushing they're shit tiers programs and steal defaults on a weekly basis.
To me the only solution is ruling both companies monopolys and fining them to hell and breaking them up. Both are out of control and ruining computing and the Internet.
Google could be broken up into
MS
..I'm too tired to keep going lol
If those had to all survive independently and couldn't leech off profits of the parent organization we could have true competition. Instead you just need one super-profitable arm of a company than loss-lead your way into other verticals and out-compete everyone else because you don't have to turn a profit, at least while the competition is still clinging on.
Ads are a core component of how search makes money. They're also a core component of how YouTube makes money.
Ads are what Google makes money with. That's their core business. I would argue most of what they offer is just a different way of either delivering you ads or farming your data for...ads.