Because it's close to impossible. To compete with Google in its primary business of search/advertising you must 1) be much better at it, or no one will switch

Because it's close to impossible. To compete with Google in its primary business of search/advertising you must 1) be much better at it, or no one will switch 2) have enough money for the equipment to handle the crazy amounts of traffic 3) have enough money for the engineers to build all that You have to realize how huge and fast google already is. You make a post/comment on Reddit, it's in the search results within minutes. What features would it take for you to switch from Google? Even if some giant like Apple would spend billions and launch a search engine, how many non-apple users would use it? My guess is - not that many. Google has become a verb. "Just google it". As far as I can see, you can beat google in some niches, like DuckDuckGo that rides on the wave of privacy.