Google DD

Google's monetization advantage (~3x revenue per query vs. Bing) means the default-slot auction is structurally unwinnable for rivals: Google's internal "Alice" study found Microsoft would need to pay 122% of Bing's total revenue just to match Google's then-current 33.75% revenue-share offer to Apple — confirmed when Microsoft offered 100% and still lost. This reframes the $42bn in default payments not as a subsidy propping up a weak product, but as the strongest bidder winning an auction it cannot structurally lose given its superior per-query economics.

TikTok's three primary revenue streams are: advertising (£10B annually, via recommended videos, app-open screens, and search ads), virtual gifts (users buy TikTok coins and send gifts during livestreams, with TikTok taking 50–70% cut), and e-commerce (cross-border GMV grew >80% YoY). The paper frames TikTok as a social media trailblazer but notes unresolved issues around merchant quality and content standards.

Google's current competitive weakness traces to a strategic misjudgment made last summer: the company prioritized defending search traffic and winning on chat over coding and agentic capabilities. Rivals ran ahead while Google wasn't looking, and Google models now significantly lag on coding agent benchmarks. This matters more than expected because coding ability turned out to underpin a wave of mainstream consumer products (e.g., Claude Code, OpenAI Codex) that emerged just a year later.