Everyone is free to make their own search engine. The consumers choose Google time and time again.

It was shown time and time again, defaults are what most consumers will use even if better alternatives exist. A ton of Bing market share comes from Edge pushing it so hard.

Google would not spend all this money with Apple/Firefox if they knew that customers would use Google without being forced into it. Since they won't change search engines, Google realized they need to force it.