I'm not sure how citing a single example counters my point, but I'll bite: Searchers aren't the customers of Google, and we have no shortage of stories on HN about Google abusing or potentially abusing their monopoly.

To return to my point: healthy market competition involves providing value for the consumer. In a healthy market there are low profit margins because high profit margins indicate a change for competition to enter and undercut. Companies competing and failing or falling to competition are not (necessarily) a sign of problem, as an above poster seemed to be saying.

However, companies seeking to find ways to prevent competition or deny it via network effects ARE a sign of an unhealthy market. And companies (as cited by the article and most of the tech-buzz-startup scene) are all about trying to grab that advantage and hold it. Logically the consumer is the one that ultimately suffers, per the very premise of healthy market competition.

I can see the day coming when the "sign in" button on "google.com" is a popup, instead of a little box in the upper right. Maybe you can still bypass it, but a dark pattern suggests strongly that you must log in to search.

There is no free market mechanism that can prevent the sale of the market.