Sure, but then you're fighting with the service provider. Your incentives are not aligned and the service you get may suffer. If you can't afford the alternativ

Sure, but then you're fighting with the service provider. Your incentives are not aligned and the service you get may suffer. If you can't afford the alternative, go for it. But if you can, you get results which are not shaped by the behaviour of people who see the ads, which may degrade your experience. Using ddg, you also effectively keep up ad supported businesses, since that's where you get the results from. One day you may find other engines don't want to provide the feed to ddg anymore or ddg doesn't want to serve you results with unlock.