loudspeaker - 8:52 pm on Feb 19, 2010 (gmt 0)

They became a behemoth in just a few years because search engines have such weak user lock-in, but if they continue screwing up their core business (SERPs) that fact may come back to bite them in the butt.

I think Google would beg to differ. Back then it was different: there was competition among search engines (remember Fast, AltaVista, Yahoo, Lycos, Mamma, Dogpile, Infoseek, etc etc?) and the field was still up for grabs. Now, with the verb and everything, they probably figure they can do as they please. As they just might have a point.