Comment by robbedpeter

At some point in the last 3 or more years, Google has been actively optimizing for profit over search quality. Google already has 98%+ of search engagement, maybe they think they can improve quality when competition appears?

Any serious appearing competitor could also be squashed by legal fuckery before getting a chance to earn enough to afford defending themselves in court. Throw in an out of court acquisition as part of settlement and Google can be confident about managing threats.