>Except Google was heavily dependent on funding from various branches of the USG in its early stages. Search for it.

But that funding could have came from anywhere. Just because the government funded something, doesn't mean that the thing would never be funded if the government didn't fund it.

>Thats debatable. Any blind studies?

Entirely anecdotal, but I've never met anyone who tried Bing and didn't switch back to Google after finding it flounders with more complex searches.

I'm not sure how one'd go about designing such a study, to avoid favouring one search engine by inadvertently testing queries it's more suited to (or picking people who make queries more suited to one than the other). Or how quality of results would be measured.

One somewhat empirical measure: Google has a much larger market share.

By the same logic Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo (much better for technical searches) could provide Google's services if they disappeared from the face of the earth.

The USG was wise enough to fund them when they were extremely risky.

What I meant was Google's founders could still have founded it without government money, it would just have taken them longer to obtain the funding.

Money isn't enough to make a search engine; Baidu for instance has the Chinese government behind it but still produces worse results even for Chinese language searches than Google. Bing's had quite a lot of funding from Microsoft put into it.

Even besides that early governmental founding. Companies aren't created nor exist in a vacuum.

Tax payer's money payed for most of the infrastructures, research and education those companies requires to operate.

How can you run a company like Google or any other without educated employees, roads, internet, etc.

Entrepreneurs love to think they built themselves alone, but they are just a product of the society they lives in.

Now as a society you can choose to either socialize or privatise your infrastructures, but you'll have to pay for them either way.

Do you need blind studies to know that you like Chocolate? To know that it's raining?

Yes, a study could show that Bing's results are x% less useful that Google's, but who would want to keep using Bing long enough to quantify the suck?

How scientific of you! :)

> but who would want to keep using Bing long enough to quantify the suck?

20% of the market?

Even if we believe the 20% figure, what's the chance that they made that choice?

Considering Microsoft popularized the dark pattern of changing preferences during auto-updates...

Sigh.

> Even if we believe the 20% figure,

Those are widely accepted.

> Considering Microsoft popularized the dark pattern of changing preferences during auto-updates...

You think Google never does anything like that?

http://hothardware.com/news/google-paid-apple-1-billion-for-...

http://www.wired.com/2016/04/eu-accuses-google-antitrust-vio...

> According to the complaint, Google requires companies that want to bundle Google’s apps with their products to make Google Search the default search engine on those devices. They’re even offered financial incentives to not even include any other search engines, European authorities allege.

When Google does it, it is all kosher I guess.

>> the 20% figure,

> Those are widely accepted.

Almost every time I saw IE, or MSN, and now Bing, I'd been tricked into using it.

MS users are rarely voluntary users, I know because I've been one.

> When Google does it

You're getting pretty defensive. Does that means you admit MS does it and the only defense is that other companies might as well?

What's your estimate of people who have tried two or more search or mapping engines and have intentionally settled on the Microsoft product?

> You're getting pretty defensive.

You are the one fetishizing Google. I know MS and Google are both slimy. Google just has a better PR machine.

> and the only defense

I am not defending MS.

> What's your estimate of people who have tried two or more search or mapping engines and have intentionally settled on the Microsoft product?

Most normal people don't know what a search engine and just go with the default.

http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/06/google-a-web-browser-is-not...

http://techcrunch.com/2009/06/17/yeah-what-is-a-browser-anyw...

> Most normal people don't know what a search engine and just go with the default.

Exactly. Microsoft's users are there because they don't know about the alternatives or are locked in.

> You are the one fetishizing Google. I know MS and Google are both slimy. Google just has a better PR machine.

I see, it is a personal thing for you.

I was just saying that Microsoft's services are essentially unusable. That's not because of Bill or Ballmer, but because Bing is just bad.

The only reason I'm mentioning dark patterns is to say that it's 20% with all the cheating they can do. Not because one in five people thinks their offering has value.