For me, the killer Google lockin is autocomplete-with-suggest in Chrome.
I've come to completely rely on Google suggest as I type search queries into my Chrome address bar.
I find that particularly when looking up API calls, I don't even need to execute a search, I just need to rely on the wisdom of what everyone else on the Internet is searching for.
Also, if just looking for the domain name for a company, you don't have to execute a search, just start typing the company name. That skips the whole results page, saving precious seconds hundreds of times per day.
I just tried switching to DDG and lasted all of 5 minutes because the lack of autocomplete.
There is a huge opportunity now more than ever to take over search.
The real goal of a search engine is to provide relevant results. Google has 100% lost site of this and this is where you and the rest of the players have an opportunity.
Make your results 100% unbiased. Google's results are littered with their own biased content coming from Places, Youtube, Google Books, etc.
No one wants to see that. Google has lost site of the user experience as they need to grow revenues. It will ultimately come as a cost to them.
You seem to be getting down-voted. Maybe it's the harsh tone on what they should not focus on. But I agree with your second point. I've noticed a decline in Google's search result quality. I suppose a large part of that is SEO. Perhaps DDG can find better ways to counteract it.
I agree with autocomplete. I created a habit in college of using Google as calculator. It was the fastest way to use and convert units like astronomical units and solar masses. My wife and I switched to DDG for several months (Nov 10 - July 11), but the lack of autocompute calculations drove me away. It's a ridiculous thing to want in a search engine, but there it is.
Autocompletion is _the_ primary reason I switched to Chrome. It Just Works, even going so far as to learn it should switch from maps.google.com to maps.google.com.au when I type "maps". It wasn't too long before the AU site went from the second suggestion to the first. This saves me tons of typing every single day.
I've come to completely rely on Google suggest as I type search queries into my Chrome address bar.
I find that particularly when looking up API calls, I don't even need to execute a search, I just need to rely on the wisdom of what everyone else on the Internet is searching for.
Also, if just looking for the domain name for a company, you don't have to execute a search, just start typing the company name. That skips the whole results page, saving precious seconds hundreds of times per day.
I just tried switching to DDG and lasted all of 5 minutes because the lack of autocomplete.