A large portion of savvy web users are ready to switch search engines on a snap if a superior value proposition comes along; if you build it (well) they will come. The same is 10x as true for news sources.
Can Apple switch to alternative search such as DuckDuckGo or Bing without substantially upsetting customers? Perhaps with nobody really noticing or producing fanfare? I think the difference between DDG and Google is the difference in what is sufficiently compelling for customers to feel.
Similarly, can Apple quite visibly switch map providers without much difference to customers?
As for news sources I suspect people are already very promiscuous, which is part of the problem.
All the talk about Apple being all about privacy is 100% marketing. There is no way apple is going to give up $12 billion dollars a year in revenue [0] to not default to google for search.
There’s a reason why states have rules against monopolistic companies. Once a company reaches a critical mass in one sector, it becomes almost impossible to create competition, for many various reasons.
But you’re right, old european countries really never tried to think seriously about what makes them lagging so much behind the US and China.
People will absolutely switch if another search engine is substantially better. But that's hard to do because Google isn't a lazy incumbent, their search is being continually worked on and improved.
Mostly other search engines seem to try to compete based on privacy or something, and while that's nice, it's not as tangible as superior core search functionality.
Like, DuckDuckGo isn't a bad search engine, and for a lot of things it seems about equally good. But "comparably good most of the time" doesn't make for a very compelling case to switch.