[snowwrestler]

This is crazy; of course it is a real possibility that someone could beat Google search. It could be a big competitor who grows over time to challenge them wholesale, or it could be a collection of smaller, smarter mobile apps that nibble away at their marketshare from every direction.

You must be fairly young...when Google originally launched, few people thought that a plain white page with a search box could unseat Altavista, let alone Microsoft.

[chc]

Wow, that is a pretty condescending reply based on an uncharitable misreading of my comment.

The point was not "Nobody will ever beat Google search no matter how much time passes." It was that Google being killed outright by a better search engine is extremely unlikely for the foreseeable future, so to call their long-term plans into question on that basis is specious.

Also, Google has not really unseated Microsoft. Microsoft's flagship products — Windows and Office — are still utterly dominant. Most of Google's battles with Microsoft have been from MS trying to encroach on Google's turf and losing. (I mean, yes, MSN Search existed before, but it was just a white-label AltaVista when Google entered the field.)

At any rate, Microsoft has been assailed on every possible front and is weakened but still massive. If you want a model of Google's future from '90s history, I'd say that's the worst case that's likely in the medium-long-term. AltaVista was a big search engine when the Web was small, but it was never Google.

[snowwrestler]

> The point was not "Nobody will ever beat Google search no matter how much time passes."

Well then I apologize--that's how I read it.

In terms of how Google might "lose", the real issue is their ad revenue growth, and I'll give an example. My employer (a nonprofit) runs online ad campaigns to raise awareness on issues. We used to spend a lot with Google; these days almost all the money goes to a combination of Facebook, Twitter, Outbrain, and Taboola. Every one of those performs more efficiently than Google.

Google could get beat like Microsoft got beat--not destroyed, but not setting the agenda either. It used to be that Microsoft could just buy or leverage their way into markets if they missed the boat early. They did it with databases, with business accounting, with the browser, with mobile (the first time around). They can't do that anymore.

Google is buying their way into the ISP market...they may not always be able to do that, even if they maintain a solid search market share.