[gojomo]

Interesting albeit evil idea.

The top natural results are worth a ton, and as the incumbent, Google could probably bid higher for them.

But more problematic for the strategy: if the top 5-10 results disappeared, wouldn't some enterprising we-try-harder also-ran in the same categories just rush up to fill the void with equally-good results? Most top results are probably not so proprietary they can't be rebuilt by others -- just look how many top results are from Wikipedia.

Finally, if this buy-out strategy actually did start to work, it could attract legal/regulatory attention as being anticompetitive or anticonsumer. Legal grounds for indexing sites even against their wishes could be found or legislated. Plausibly legal workarounds (like having users index materials as they visit, and forward summaries to Google, a law the old Grub project) would be devised.

[DenisM]

Author is a true hacker. His numbers are off, but he is thinking quite outside the box, pondering weakness of the system from different angles.