Why would it? An independent search company offering advertising slots to independent ad networks would still benefit from posting as many ads as users will tolerate.

The question is whether there is a sustainable business for doing search, but not ads.

An option might be that the search provider can license the search results to different companies putting their individual ads on topmofnthe results. Then different sites could compete for the the best dispaly and usability.

Similar to the way elictricity grids are split from providers or railway tracks are split from train operators in many European countries.

Issue of course is that with electrical grids and rail networks are a "solved" issue with little innovation. In the search market there is still lots of room for improvement and constant need to adapt to spamers.

They pay for search with ads and is necessary for them to operate. They still need to make money.

I think the common suggestion is that they're not allowed to continue to own the content providers like maps or YouTube or shopping.

Other suggestions include stopping them competing with other aggregators like hotel ratings (TripAdvisor, etc.), shopping, flight finders, review services (yelp, etc.).

The 2nd one is a bit trickier because in some ways, it's valuable to users, but extremely easy for Google to essentially become the landlord of the internet and easily engage in extreme rent seeking behaviour.

I suspect that advertising and selling marketing data are the only ways to make search profitable.

No. How would it? How would the search unit moonitize itself? So far add is the only way and it’s a perfect fit. Something is wrong with this whole thing. I think it’s that the media companies are realizing they are losing power and influence and are trying to organize their power again. We’d be better off splitting infrastructure companies from media companies and preventing any attempts at vertical integration there. And blocking acquisitions by google.