The problem is that when you bundle products, you can maintain your market dominance even when competitors have a better product. Microsoft has shown this to be true countless times, most recently with MS Teams (vs Slack).
Furthermore it doesn’t cut it to be marginally better than Google Search when they’re the default search engine. You have to completely blow them out of the water and for that you likely need long term, sustained investment to pour into R&D. How many VCs are willing to play that long game and invest when you have an incumbent paying $20B+ to block user choice?
The creation of Firefox and Google Chrome are examples of competition that tremendously benefited consumers, but which took many years to play out, after the government ruled against monopolistic behavior.
> it doesn’t cut it to be marginally better than Google Search when they’re the default search engine. You have to completely blow them out of the water.
More than that, it's the de facto default for anyone who can be bothered to change it. It also reminds me of the Dvorak keyboard. It's somewhat better than the competition, but not better enough to justify changing. Google's search competitors are trying, but they're not obviously much better.
Furthermore it doesn’t cut it to be marginally better than Google Search when they’re the default search engine. You have to completely blow them out of the water and for that you likely need long term, sustained investment to pour into R&D. How many VCs are willing to play that long game and invest when you have an incumbent paying $20B+ to block user choice?
The creation of Firefox and Google Chrome are examples of competition that tremendously benefited consumers, but which took many years to play out, after the government ruled against monopolistic behavior.