> Startup search engines that could help lessen the stranglehold Google has will not have the resources.
Until Alphabet buys out that startup for a couple of millions. Imho that's a factor barely mentioned on the issue of "Google monopoly".
If anything pops up that looks like it could disrupt the Google dominance, long or short-term, it's quickly acquired and welcomed to the flock.
On one hand that's good because puts the immense resources of Alphabet behind interesting and sometimes important ideas, on the other hand, it leads to a situation where meaningful competition can't grow to a size where it could actually oppose Google's dominance, at least not independently.
My point is that if you believe Google's "monopoly" to be detrimental to the populace, you should address that head-on, instead of dancing around it and applying lots of little regulations which, though they do "address the problem" and help make Google less anti-trust, they could also (are likely to?) hurt other companies that are not monopolistic down the line.
Attack anti-trust at it's source. If you find this story worrying, your worry should not be "Google is removing search results", but rather "Google has so much dominance, them removing results is a serious concern".
This addresses your first point: don't force Google to do certain things and then let them buy any and all competitors, instead don't let them buyout all competitors in the first place. It's a much more elegant solution, in my opinion.
Until Alphabet buys out that startup for a couple of millions. Imho that's a factor barely mentioned on the issue of "Google monopoly". If anything pops up that looks like it could disrupt the Google dominance, long or short-term, it's quickly acquired and welcomed to the flock.
On one hand that's good because puts the immense resources of Alphabet behind interesting and sometimes important ideas, on the other hand, it leads to a situation where meaningful competition can't grow to a size where it could actually oppose Google's dominance, at least not independently.