I have given this some thought in the past -- the only analogy I can really think of is comparing it to trying to compete with Amazon
Companies that try to go directly head to head against Amazon (Overstock, Buy) end up meddling along unable to really gain any traction.
The ones that actually do compete with Amazon are the scrappy niche ecommerce sites. The ones that can hyper-target their marketing efforts and deliver a far superior and more engaging experience. I used to work for a company that sold specialty products and we didn't have much trouble competing with Amazon when we offered things like really detailed guides, fun product videos, unique and tailored buying advice, etc. Things that don't scale...
I think what we could eventually see more and more of when it comes to competing with Google will be niche search engines. For example, despite Google's flight search, Kayak still provides a far superior experience. Google can't effectively scale their search results the same way a hyper focused and scrappier company can.
There are a lot of verticals that could eventually begin to chip away at Google's market share moving forward. It will continue to get tougher for Google to compete in each of them.
The natural roadblock of course being initial branding to the point where people stop going to Google to find you, instead opting to go directly to your site to search (no easy task).
Since you brought up Amazon, I thought I would share Andy Dunn's (Founder of Bonobos) article on competing with Amazon. https://medium.com/what-i-learned-building/d233f02d52a5 The article concludes that at some point you are inevitably going to go head-to-head with Amazon and their business already has scale to take advantage of many opportunities. Where they are weak or have chinks in their armor, they have made great acquisitions in terms of functions (e.g. customer service via Zappos) and verticals (e.g. baby products via Diapers.com/6pm via female accessories, etc.).
I find Google Flights to be much better than Kayak, and so have the couple people I've talked to about the difference. What do you like more about Kayak?
Other than flexible dates and more search options, Kayak has direct search links to the airlines. Google flights (while having brilliant map search) asks you to call a travel agency and in many cases the price was not as accurate as Kayak
This is surprising to me because Kayak uses ITA Software [1] which is owned by Google. Perhaps Kayak has better relationships with the airlines than Google and cultivates more accurate pricing this way.
Companies that try to go directly head to head against Amazon (Overstock, Buy) end up meddling along unable to really gain any traction.
The ones that actually do compete with Amazon are the scrappy niche ecommerce sites. The ones that can hyper-target their marketing efforts and deliver a far superior and more engaging experience. I used to work for a company that sold specialty products and we didn't have much trouble competing with Amazon when we offered things like really detailed guides, fun product videos, unique and tailored buying advice, etc. Things that don't scale...
I think what we could eventually see more and more of when it comes to competing with Google will be niche search engines. For example, despite Google's flight search, Kayak still provides a far superior experience. Google can't effectively scale their search results the same way a hyper focused and scrappier company can.
There are a lot of verticals that could eventually begin to chip away at Google's market share moving forward. It will continue to get tougher for Google to compete in each of them.
The natural roadblock of course being initial branding to the point where people stop going to Google to find you, instead opting to go directly to your site to search (no easy task).