Google jumped into the market when it was still possible to compete. And they came to the table with a product that was faster, better, cheaper, and more easy t

Google jumped into the market when it was still possible to compete. And they came to the table with a product that was faster, better, cheaper, and more easy to monetize. Google-style data centers reduced costs, sharding and map-reduce plus streamlined design improved speed, pagerank improved quality, low cost fast searches meant that low cost advertisements could still bring in a lot of RoI. From that kernel they grew to dominance, becoming synonymous with the very term "search". Now we live in a different era, one where search is integrated in everything on every platform and where replacing the default search engine is a huge uphill battle. Let's say that someone creates a better search engine, how would people actually use it? I'll tell you how most people who bothered to use it would integrate into their routines. Firstly they would still use google for everything day to day. They would still use google maps for directions. They would still use gmail for mail. They would still use google search as the semantic front-end for their browsing. Only after they performed a search using google that produced unsatisfactory results would they then pull out the better search engine and make use of it for that one isolated search. And that's the problem, because that scenario is very hard for the better search engine maker to monetize while google would continue reaping the major monitization haul for the vast majority of search uses for that user. And going from zero to completely integrating into a user's experience in the same way that google does now is not a realistic prospect for most startups.