[nickpsecurity]

"a public Pagerank algorithm isn't an artificially scarce environment"

I already told you I retracted artificial scarcity claim since I didnt know it had established meaning in economics. I shifted to a similar argument based on monopolies. Google's PageRank wasnt just publuc: it was patented (monopoly), extremely effective, and more efficieng than contenders that sprang up. That nobody could copy or beat the algorithm is why they stayed on top despite tons of search and meta-search engines existing.

If it was public and not patented, search landscape + Google's valuation might look a lot different. The monopoly on the best technique is why they got huge rather than a temporary advantage.