David McCabe writing for the New York Times: Google Violated Antitrust Laws in Online Search, Judge Rules

The government argued that by paying billions of dollars to be the automatic search engine on consumer devices, Google had denied its competitors the opportunity to build the scale required to compete with its search engine. Instead, Google collected more data about consumers that it used to make its search engine better and more dominant.

To which the judge said:

After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly.

The one thing that I am really curious about is what exactly that $20 billion-ish per year that Google pays Apple to be the default search engine in Safari is for. If Google really is what everyone wants to use, then way pay to achieve what customers would choose anyway? Is part of the deal that Apple won’t make their own search engine as long as Google keeps paying?

Genuinely, let’s say 2025 rolls in, Apple execs are expecting Google to write their annual mega-check like they have for years, and Google just says no. What happens? Does Apple leave Google the default since it’s what customers want? Does Apple make something else the default? If so, what? Does Apple fast track their own search engine?

I genuinely don’t know and I’m really curious to see what happens if it did. Depending on how Google is required to remedy this situation, it looks like we might find out.