[gordon_gee1]

They don’t have to necessarily deeply monetize to be successful, apple could play dumb and offer ad results based on search terms only. DuckDuckGo does similar and I do wonder at scale what kind of revenue this could end up being. Google doesnt behave in an entirely pro-business way as well. Google ads are not market efficient at the moment, with competitors taking keywords that are company names for example, forcing businesses to spend to be the first option even if the user searches your business’ exact name. Eliminating just a few insulting Google search behaviors and limiting data tracking could be a nice revenue stream

[simonh]

Success means revenue of at least $15bn plus the cost of operating the search service and ad network. Anything less is a revenue hit.

[gomox]

I find it interesting that you consider the mob-like behavior of Google forcing everyone to bid on their own name "not efficient". It seems to me like they are really efficient (at their goal of extracting tons of revenue from everyone and their dog).

[londons_explore]

They have far far lower revenue per impression than strongly targeted ads using ML.