You are right that it's a lot of work to beat Google in its own game, but what I realized recently is that Google as a text search service is not that essential

You are right that it's a lot of work to beat Google in its own game, but what I realized recently is that Google as a text search service is not that essential for me as it used to be like 5 years ago. For example, now when I am searching for news, like I want to know what's new with wikileaks, I start my search on twitter, where I get more fresh and more diverse info. Or if I want to know about something I know very little about, I start on Wikipedia, etc. So while Google can be unkillable, other companies can make it less indispensable by providing completely new ways of searching for info.