[ralfd]

I want to argue that the lock-in for Google is pretty huge.

Consider this web ad from three days ago from Microsoft:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNWuOJXP-R4

It makes the claim that in blind tests people choose Bing to Google nearly 2:1. Which is a pretty bold and substantial claim. Question: Do you believe that? Does this new info make you want to try it and set bing even one week as your default search engine? Do you even care? (Notice also that I linked to the bing account on Youtube, a subsidiary of Google, and the chances are high that you are either browsing with Chrome or use Safari/Firefox which use Google as default search.)

[waterlesscloud]

Bing may be marginally better than Google. It's certainly possible that it is.

But marginally better doesn't matter much, which is why I was careful to say "notably" better.

Search now is nothing like what it will be in a decade, and someone is going to make that leap. Might be Google, might not.

What happens when someone makes that quantum leap in delivering the information you want?

If it's not Google, the ad network disintegrates at least as fast as the search users vanish.

I would argue that Youtube has the most lock-in of any Google product, with Gmail second. Neither is invulnerable, but Youtube in particular will be hard to pull folks away from. Moving video around is tedious, and people largely just won't do it.

[xyzzyz]

I was working at Google when this Bing campaign went live. People didn't believe this, so they spent some money on Mechanial Turk, so that people do the "Bing challenge" and report results. I recommend doing that, if you have some disposable money.

I'd say, though, that the ads network is the bigger lock-in for Google, because it's vastly superior than alternativea.

[ralfd]

Uh, nice. What was the result of the Turk people?