Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella admits the most common search query on Bing is "google":
https://www.google.com/search?q=nadella+bing+most+%22common+...
So when I do want to see goggles results for the same thing I type "google", and a lot of the time the browser doesn't autocomplete to google.com before I hit return. So whoops, I just searched for "google".
For example, I set my friend's default search engine to Bing, and if she wants to find something, in her mind, she needs to "google it". So she types: "google supermarket opening times" and so on.
Then searching, a cookie banner shows, a popup points me to a feature on the top right, and the main content suddenly vanishes (probably because I have an adblocker, which blocked 35 items). The "New Bing" opens up another thing where you can ask the AI things... just like Ask Jeeves did 25 years ago.
Each headline can only be a few words so they have to get right to the point, with keywords like "missing", "shooting", "died", "convicted", etc.
Compact doom side scrolling.
I'm not debating you because I don't have the raw usage data but I observe a different behavior with non-HN non-techie crowd: they deliberately want to go to the "google.com" home page to also navigate to Google's webapps like Gmail, Google Calendar, etc
example screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/X0pFgAs
The users have Google sign-ins and they don't know (or haven't memorized) direct urls like "gmail.com" or "calendar.google.com". What they do know is the colorful icons on Google's main page to click on to get to those apps. In these use cases, the Google landing page -- which has a search bar -- is also acting as a modern-day version of America Online's "portal to the internet". That's what I personally observe people typing "google" into Bing is trying to accomplish. Of course the prominent search field is still front-and-center so they'll naturally use Google Search because of familiarity. The search text field PLUS the Google web apps reinforce each other's continued usage habits.