> If some search engine came and produced vastly superior results to Google, people would absolutely switch.

True, although that's unlikely to happen any time soon. (then again, how can we really predict any of this)

> That's how Google came to power in the first place: their results were just better.

That was also back when the barrier to entry was much lower, and there was a lot of low-hanging fruit for Google to pick both in search and other areas.

Let's say that someone today manages to get enough money and talent to build something that is at least equivalent to Google: I think people will overwhelmingly stick with Google because of the brand recognition and because "everyone else uses it." As both services would be free to use, there's nothing to force people to closely consider what merits their dollars will be spent on. Google could be highly censored and totally corrupt in other ways, but people will continue to use it because, as their wallets aren't being punished or used for nefarious purposes, they'll be willing to put up with seemingly benign abuse that they feel they have no part in perpetuating.

This is one reason why, even though I am not against advertising in and of itself, I despise what the state of digital advertising has done to the web and the world depending on it. And, as you stated, Google's advertising platform enables them to have many tentacles without the inherent need to own other companies; instead, they can have individuals businesses they don't own depend on their applications funded by ad revenue, making it a tremendously difficult choice for policy makers to split them up.