But What Do We Do If Google Is Legitimately Just A Better Search Engine?
I've noted my skepticism regarding the antitrust attacks on the current Google antitrust trial regarding how it pays to have its search placed as the default on Safari and other browsers/phones. Again, that does not mean I'm skeptical of all antitrust suits against Google, as some of the others (around advertising) appear to have significantly more merit on a first pass (we'll see what the details turn up though).
But the search case just... doesn't seem to add up. As we've noted, a key part of the ongoing case was just how much Google was paying for these defaults (over $26.3 billion in 2021). But that seems to actually argue against an abuse of a monopoly position argument. Because if Google were such a monopoly, then it wouldn't need to pay as much to get those deals. There just wouldn't be other offerings to compete.
One bit came out in the case about a week ago, and I've been thinking about it a bunch since then, though not entirely sure what to make of it. Apparently, Mozilla agreed to switch to Yahoo as the default search in Firefox in 2014. Yahoo promised to pay more money to Mozilla than Google did, and promised to provide a better overall experience (including fewer ads). And apparently it was a disaster for Mozilla, because users hated it.
Chief Executive Officer Mitchell Baker said Mozilla decided to switch to Yahoo's technology in 2014 after CEO Marissa Mayer took over and promised to make a big bet on us."
That bet failed," Baker said in a videotaped interview from 2022 played Wednesday in Google's defense during the Justice Department's antitrust trial. The search experience that Yahoo was providing to Firefox users deteriorated."
Indeed, the article notes that Yahoo agreed to pay nearly $100 million more than Google, which was important revenue for Mozilla. But users just absolutely did not like it to the point that it might have legitimately contributed to Firefox's losing users (it's likely there were many other factors as well, but this is still notable):
I felt strongly that Yahoo was not delivering the search experience we needed and had contracted for," Baker said.
[....]
Firefox's browser has a feature that lets users easily change between searching on Yahoo, Google, Microsoft's Bing or DuckDuckGo. Even with that, Baker said, the number of users who stayed with Firefox declined noticeably during the years when Yahoo was the default."
Firefox's user decline wasn't necessarily because of the switch, Baker said, but it did coincide with search engine change.
Our users made it clear that they look for and want and expect Google," she said.
And that raises a real question. How does antitrust handle a situation where the company that is so dominant is in that position because is legitimately offers a better product by a wide margin.
I would love to see more real competition in the search space. Bing and DuckDuckGo continue to just not cut it. I'm intrigued by startups like Kagi (which I've been using, and which actually seems pretty good), but it's not clear how antitrust helps companies like that get a wider audience.
I'm increasingly coming to the belief that we've spent way too many years equating antitrust with increased competition, when it's one of the least effective mechanisms for enabling greater competition. The situation with Mozilla and Firefox seems to just put an exclamation point on that. If the DOJ wins this lawsuit, what will it actually do to help get more competition on the market? More competition that is actually good and that people want?
It would be nice if we can get past this focus on antitrust as the only tool in the toolbox to increase competition, because it just seems woefully insufficient for that purpose.