Gruber posits a very good question about up-ending the “default” way of searching in his commentary about Google’s declining search results quality.
How many people actually go to google.com to search, and how many just type search terms in their browser location field? If most people just type search terms in the location field, a browser that switches from Google to another engine by default will switch those users automatically. How many people would even notice a switch given that nearly all search engines style results in a generally Google-like way?
This is probably more true than many in tech would think. The habit of opening your browser and just typing, either to auto-complete a bookmark or initiate a query search, is ubiquitous. How many people would notice a change away from a default search engine? How many would care?
It’s notable because so many Internet users are finding other ways of discovering and shopping for products (retail sites/apps), going back to their favorite travel sites/apps to book a trip, or even following popular product-peddling celebrities on social platforms. What, indeed, are most people using search engines for these days? And do they care which one they’re using if there isn’t an inherent value to using one vs another?
I see Brave is acquiring its own search engine to further fortify its remarkably strong browser ecosystem. That’ll be the best case study to watch this whole hypothesis unfold, particularly since Apple likely isn’t going to sacrifice the $10bn or so Google hands them for making Google the default on Safari.