The Wager of Death: Why the Bing/Yahoo Merger is Irrelevant

In case you were just released from Guantanamo Bay in the last 20 minutes or so and haven’t heard – Microsoft and Yahoo have now officially announced a ten-year search deal.

But what does it truly mean to the majority of us? Well, it means that the tech blogs (like this one) have some interesting material to work with. Other than that, I am dubious it will make much difference. A lot of folks are playing up the competition card: i.e. now Google has a formidable competitor. I would argue that this merger actually decreases the competition.

Google now has one less competitor. In fact it reduces the amount of serious competitors from two to one. It’s true that Yahoo! and Bing can now pool resources and theoretically form a stronger search engine. But to the average web surfer, search isn’t about resources. It’s about trust. We trust Google.

How much do we trust Google? Well, let’s suppose your life depended on search accuracy. You’re being held hostage and the only thing that will save you is coming up with the right answer to a question. The only resource you’re allowed is a single search on the engine of your choice. Your answer is restricted to the #1 result on the given page. Which search engine would you choose? Until that answer changes from Google (don’t kid yourselves), this merger or any other is largely irrelevant.