and have never paid Google a single penny for anything.
That's why Google is so dominant. That's why they are so skilled at data collection. The built a system that converts user data into dollars, so users don't have to pay. And users love, absolutely love, like their first born child and high school sweetheart combined into one, not having to pay for things.
Google is not the reason google sucks. People's unwillingness to compensate for services they use is. And before you comment with how you use Kagi, and Nebula, and Patreon. Yes, thank you. You are in the <0.1% of internet users who get it.
This is what healthy functioning regulatory bodies are supposed to do.
Stop complaining to people and start calling your legislators.
HN is one of the few places this message will land. My ask here is that you go to your lawmakers and tell them.
Maybe not directly but if hotels and the like have to pay 15% of their turnover to Google for ads to get visitors, either directly or via booking.com etc, then you end up paying that when you stay there.
That kind of stuff is where Google's billions come from.
The system you exist in today is heavily regulated. Perhaps over-regulated. But you don't want to live in an unregulated chaos.