> What they are doing is very little different than what Google did when Google was the plucky underdog.

I don't remember to be the case. Google won because the existing search engines at the time (altavista, excite, etc) paled in comparison to its search results. Same for its other services like Gmail that offered 1gb space when Hotmail offered only 2mb.

I can understand the Google hate but they did many things right also to capture the top spots.

You imply that google did the same when they were the underdog, but I don't see any clear parallels between their practices.

What did google do when they were the underdog?

Launched a clearly better product that everyone flocked to because it worked so much better than the competition. I'm not sure how that relates to DDG though.

They ranked based on relevance, not who paid the most. That was new.