I use DuckDuckGo myself. The issue isn't that no alternatives exist (if that were the case, it would be much clearer that Google had a plain and simple monopoly). The issue is that Google can unilaterally kill or make other businesses through their search. For example, they can use their search dominance to push everyone into Chrome in order to kill Firefox (even as they pay Mozilla and Apple to keep Google as default search).
Google's search dominance is under threat from competition, but they do enough anti-competitive stuff to keep their dominance that it's an issue.
Maybe a big step would be just to block Google from paying Apple and others to make Google the default. I don't know. Probably the more impactful would be to separate the Google search business from the Android stuff. The benefit Google has from tying those two together makes it really so much harder for competition to gain ground.
If you want a pretty neutral balanced view of the issues of anti-trust, Planet Money did a good little series on how overreach in the past led to excessive caution and underreaction now.
> The issue is that Google can unilaterally kill or make other businesses through their search.
I don't see how this answers my statement. Of course they can, it's their platform. I'm sure MS pushes their new browser on bing. There's another thread open today where people have listed a ton of alternates so one can de-google. I did it 2 years ago, it's been fine. Apple Maps is much better than it used to be, bing is better than it used to be. Lots of email options.
I'm not saying it's a clear conclusion that Google has a monopoly that must be regulated/broken-up. I'm saying that it's not conclusive. The case is strong enough to seriously consider and to evaluate. I think the duopoly of iOS/Android is probably the most serious issue, even more than search. But none of this is simple cut-and-dry.
So for search they are not a monopoly, not even close.
For iOS/Android, I'm not seeing a problem just because they are popular. Is there some specific legislation you would like passed which would interfere and most likely overreach into their companies?
Like you said, it's not cut and dry because there isn't a monopoly. If an upstart company came along and wanted to make a new mobileOS, I wish them well. If Google or Apple did something wrong to interfere with their success, bring a suit at that time with specific claims.
> it could utterly devastate all sorts of players in the market
That's the risk you take if you bank your entire business off of your search rank on Google. You should diversify accordingly.
This fuzziness you speak of has lead to massive overreach in the past, and it needs to stop.