I think you have to look at it more like Amazon Prime. Nobody is going to pay for /just/ a search engine. But they might pay for, say, a /better/ search engine

I think you have to look at it more like Amazon Prime. Nobody is going to pay for /just/ a search engine. But they might pay for, say, a /better/ search engine, plus additional features around gmail/gcal/gdrive. Think of it more as subscribing "to google" and less as subscribing to "google search". Regardless, the point isn't to "fix" google. It's to highlight a possible path for a new market entrant. ... If an existing player wanted to make a move here, I would say that both Mozilla and Apple are well positioned to add "personalized search" to a subscription service. Same with Microsoft. DDG could also make moves here if they expanded beyond search.