>Ads are doing better than ever, Android is holding steady worldwide, Maps has a huge moat that Apple has yet to overcome (in over a decade), nobody really complains about Google Search except us nerds.

What you've just described are the conditions that, time and time again, have persuaded companies to cut R&D spending and set the stage for being overtaken in a couple decades.

(After going 20 years without an engineering culture in management, would they respond to a threat by jumping on a real emerging technology, or a buzzword technology? That's why you can't cut your researchers and simply bring them back when your competitors are getting close.)

Companies like Google don't really get "overtaken" per se.

Rather, they become bricks in the wall: the kind of place where the firm is extremely unlikely to ever shut down because it's inextricably embedded into the business practices of major firms and governments, but it also has to run ads to get the next generation of employees to bother to go work for it.

>nobody really complains about Google Search except us nerds.

I know many non nerd complainers, but they don't know any alternatives.

And YouTube - although TikTok is winning in some segments: https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/07/tiktok-is-crushing-youtube...

n=1 but the built-in Maps on iphone seems to be fine these days. Doesn't steer me wrong, integrates with a car. Not sure what the moat here is other than name recognition or current popularity. Perhaps app integration or API consumption?