There would be more if there was an easy way around the distribution problem. Becoming the default search engine in Firefox would sure help with that problem.
"""99% of FF users would just switch to Google as soon as they install it. I assume you can back that up somehow? Most evidence I've seen indicates that the majority of people don't change defaults.""""
Then the evidence you've seen is wrong. If people "don't change defaults" how come they switched to FF in the first place, which is not the default browser on Windows, but is (or rather, was until it lost to Chrome) an extremely popular windows browser?
Maybe naive users don't change defaults, but those users are sticking with (duh) the default IE. Users that moved to FF are more likely to change defaults.
Also, they won't even have to change the default: they just navigate to google.com and search from there, instead of using the search in the toolbar with this unfamiliar "Bing" thing.
Note the use of the word: "competent". None has results that good that make people actually want to switch to it. (For example, DDG's main selling point is privacy).
The only example I agree with, Baidu was made from a similar algorithm to Google's and with a remarkably similar history (RankDex vs PageRank etc). And even that is mainly popular in China for national/cultural/political reasons, methinks.
So is your argument that Google should have paid nothing to be the default search engine, because people will switch, or is it that $300 million is an appropriate about for the 1% that won't change the default?
"""So is your argument that Google should have paid nothing to be the default search engine, because people will switch, or is it that $300 million is an appropriate about for the 1% that won't change the default?"""
No, "my argument" was on the topic of the comment I specifically responded to.
You know, where you said that by getting the FF default search && making your own search engine, you'll "profit". To which I responded something akin to: "bollocks --even if you do that, FF users will just switch search engine back to Google".
2) Bid $300 million for Mozilla's search spot.
3) Raise $600 million, build search engine
4) Profit
(Yeah, in practice steps 2 and 3 would need to happen simultaneously)