While both represent walled gardens. One by search ranking the other by latency/bandwidth. It is a lot easier to change/create a search provider since there is

While both represent walled gardens. One by search ranking the other by latency/bandwidth. It is a lot easier to change/create a search provider since there is nothing that has locked you in as such. But remember you are there because you find their walled garden useful. However you don't have a choice if your packets are going to traverse AT&T. Also on some level creating a new search engine is a less costly task that rolling out new internet infrastructure. If AT&T shaping was opt-in and they didn't unfairly discriminate against those who haven't opted in ;) but that means you have to trust them to be benevolent. They can do good with shaping, just like google does good with ranking. However once you grant them this power, you better hope they don't use it in an anticompetitive way.