My only claim has been (and continues to be) that not all features a search engine provides need to have direct monetization. If you took the same concept and

My only claim has been (and continues to be) that not all features a search engine provides need to have direct monetization. If you took the same concept and applied it to television then would it just be entirely advertisements? Who would watch it? Obviously there needs to be a balance between providing utility and earning revenue. And television is typically a service that users pay for in addition to having advertisements! > But masses of people want to use them Many products get popular by being high quality, lock in market domination as much as possible, and then maximize revenue even if at the expense of quality. Food brands often follow this trend by using high quality ingredients early on then go public and replace the ingredients with cheaper ones. Sure, eventually the brand loyalty is destroyed, but that can take significantly longer than it took to build the brand recognition. > despite them not offering the extra features Most search engines had this specific feature for most of their lifespan. It's difficult to tell if a search engine like Google would get popular if released back in 1999 while being operated like it is currently.