Google witness accidentally blurts out that Apple gets 36% cut of Safari deal

salarua@sopuli.xyz to Technology@beehaw.org – 125 points –
Google witness accidentally blurts out that Apple gets 36% cut of Safari deal
arstechnica.com
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I’m really curious, I can’t imagine many people choosing something other than google, but apparently google thinks enough people would to make it worth giving up almost 40% of their entire revenue.

Seems to me they’re mostly paying for the data they’re getting out of this, I can imagine they’d be making more money without the deal. Maybe slightly fewer users, but 40% more revenue.

I don't think google fear Apple having to offer a choice to users. They fear Apple defaulting to Bing or something else.

While most people might choose google when presented with a choice, possibly more people are just going to keep the default settings when not presented with a choice.

That makes a lot of sense. So they’re not really afraid of the choice as much as they are of a different default.

Exactly. Apple probably simply gives it out to the highest bidder, so if Google didn't pay, Microsoft would likely get the deal instead. And sure, some people would still switch to Google in the settings (more so than the other way around), but most people don't care as long as search results are "good enough" (which for some people simply means showing youtube.com in the results because they search for "youtube" instead of going directly to "youtube.com").

Google's quality has been declining for years. I don't expect for it to remain unchallenged for long.

To be honest, Google is poor enough these days that I just use Bing for the Microsoft Rewards points.

Maybe people are not really choosing, just going with the only option they know/ remember. If they have to choose from a menu, the first option is very likely and I imagine randomness would be involved.