Google isn't the only search engine in the world of course. It probably is pretty much the only one that matters in America but the world is not just America either.

It's the only one websites don't block. That's one reason it's so hard to make another search engine.

You can for sites that can't afford the cost of keeping up-to-date with the Google IP list without which they can lose timely indexing. That is many.

What do you mean by “afford the cost”? The list is free of charge (https://support.google.com/a/answer/10026322?hl=en-GB) and maintenance can be fully automated.

I mean cost of server setup and execution.

The server that is providing the content exists already. That's a sunk cost.

"setup and execution".

Me for one. Adding an auto-updating IP address blocker to my personal blog site would probably cost more than setting up the whole site did in the first place.

Have you actually priced it, or are you just guessing?

Are you doing regular patching? Automated restarts? Watching for security breaches? Or just praying it stays up forever?

Otherwise, respectfully, I would not classify you as a "serious operator." Your site could live or die, and it would be all the same to you. Or, you've handed it to a third party for management and they don't offer much in the way of resilience or stability.

We're talking about sites that make their living via subscriptions. They should have a great interest at blocking archive.is, which is, by the way, the only service that can reliably bypass many paywalls. Clearly whatever they're doing is not easily replicated.

> We're talking about sites that make their living via subscriptions.

Sorry, but I wasn't. I thought that was clear from "can't afford the cost of keeping up-to-date with the Google IP list".

> They should have a great interest at blocking archive.is

Agreed, and many should have a budget to suit. So I conclude archive.is has put a lot of effort and cost into its defence. And all for free to us, the users.