The problem for the judge seems to be that there is no alternative at this point. No other company can bid for or credibly pay Apple/Mozilla as much as Google did. Apple testified they would spend less on innovation if the payment goes away, Mozilla said they wont survive. So the alternative for the judge is to create a market in the next five years where people invest in search, there are more credible products that come up, and are competitive enough to justify the placement bids (ending dependency on google).

The nuclear option was DDG's hope. Google should share their entire data, so DDG can offer the same product without having to build out the thing themselves. The judge correctly identified (imo) where this sharing of index and search results would have meant a bunch of white labeled wrappers selling Google search and would have no incentive to innovate themselves in the short term. Somehow, DDG did not see that happening. At that goal, it's a great ruling, well considered.

> Mozilla said they wont survive

Entirely their fault, tbh. Mozilla's C suite has knowingly enriched themselves off this money for over 15 years now. If they were serious about surviving, they would have found alternative funding sources a long time ago.

Firefox isn't a true project. It's Google paying off someone to make Chrome appear not to be a monopoly at first glance.