If academia could produce a search engine of equal quality but without ads, people would use it.
Well...but it did, and they did. But you (and Larry Page) raise a good question: is it necessary for web search to be profitable?
Well...but it did, and they did. But you (and Larry Page) raise a good question: is it necessary for web search to be profitable?
Yes. What's not necessary is for those profits to come from advertisers instead of users.
If Google really wanted to do good for the world, it could show the world how a product like their search engine, or maps, or any of their mainstay apps, could be monetized by revenue directly from users. That's how for-profit is supposed to work: you find out what users want by finding out what they will pay for. And if there's any company that could do that, it's Google. But instead, they're monetizing our ad clicks. What the ...?
In industry, yes. Academia, no.
Well, then you got two choices: run by a non-profit or run by the government.
The first one is unsustainable and the second one ... well, that would turn into even worse politics. Can you say "Welcome to TrumpSearch" or "Welcome to SearchHill"?
Every four/eight years the search database would be completely upended/suppressed/repressed/uplifted to reflect current political thinking, favoritism, lobbying, fears, hopes, hatred, etc.
It would make gerrymandering look paltry.
Even worse because you couldn't guarantee that the politicians in charge would be competent to understand a spreadsheet, much less a search engine.