[karpierz]

Apple made them the default because they are the best at monetization of large volumes of search queries from iOS devices. If another company was better at it, they'd put in a higher bid and rake in the profits.

[Regnore]

> If another company was better at it, they'd put in a higher bid and rake in the profits.

The point is that there is no world in which any other company can outpay Google, regardless of whether or not they are better at search.

[pgeorgi]

I'm not sure if "outpay Google" is necessary for that. Apple and Google are competitors, in some aspects this seemed almost personal (Steve Jobs mentioned "thermonuclear war", see https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2015/01/31/how-apple...)

Another search engine that is 90% there and can offer only 10% of payments might have been good enough (at least in a certain time frame) if it gave Apple an opportunity to snub Google.