[TimCTRL]

I have a naive question..what would happen if google simply stopped paying this money, and let the user decide?...I guess it wouldn't affect them much, google is still the best search engine.

[yreg]

Bing was the default 2012 - 2017. Apparently Google found that it is well worth it to them to pay these massive amounts.

[pasc1878]

Google is worried that Apple would then release a search engine and that would be worse for them than the somple payment.

[lillecarl]

Except Google rarely/barely is the best search engine anymore.