[stakhanov]

Actually, your first choice, i.e. random list, would be great! If, as a consumer, the search engine you end up with would end up not being to your liking, you'd hit the browser extension marketplace and look for another default search engine and search engines would face (more or less) a level playing field.

This MAY seem like an absurdity, if one has been in the internet channel economics business for so long that one can't remember what a free market looks like, but THAT would be a free market.

[londons_explore]

If it is a random list of all search engines, I will be registering 10,000 search engines named every dictionary word...

[stakhanov]

...and all of them will be shit meaning that, in every single case, the user will go looking for another default search engine using the browser extension marketplace or the web or a review website or some other discovery facility that's actually useful. Your 10.000 search engines business would go broke and they would disappear from the list of search engines getting randomly selected from. Making the random list useful again. Behold the power of free market economics. It could only be a long-term equilibrium if it actually delivered something that was in the consumer's best interests, rather than being designed for the purpose of handing the largest-possible pile of cash to Google.

[stakhanov]

The real clash in opposing world-views that's going on here is that the competition authorities are trying to enforce a system of free consumer choice. And there are a bunch of people in Silicon Valley doing a Jack Nicholson impression going "Free choice? You want free choice? The consumer can't HANDLE free choice!"