Wouldn't Google love it if paying became illegal for everyone? After all, if nobody could pay Apple for placement, Apple would probably choose Google, and Google would save $20 billion per year.
It also would more or less be the end of Mozilla. Over half their income comes from Google.
> After all, if nobody could pay Apple for placement, Apple would probably choose Google
I think they’d add a ‘choose a search engine’ dialog at setup time, randomizing search order.
I for one would like to able to support Mozilla software development. However the only sensiblr way to sponsor is to the foundation with it's political initiatives or paying for VPN.
I generally align with their political views, but support political activities via other orgs and explicitly want a browser and related software.
For the VPN product however I have no need.
There is the way to sponsor individual non-Mozilla people, but that's more complicated ...
Google is a horrible UX since some time and there are paid alternatives like paid engines and LLM’s with access to the internet. Maybe provide that with the paid iCloud subscription?
I doubt that Apple would want to give their competitor a free one-up in this space, so a choice for such a critical thing may be reasonable.
Or, you know, a few billion dollars.
Because Apple knows how to play hardball.
> Why choose Google if they don't benefit from it?
They benefit about $20B a year.