Alternatively, earnings falling was already expected and thus priced in.

They don’t need to actually make one, they just need to throw $1B at appearing to making one so Google will throw them $5B more a year to have priority over it.

I keep saying they should just buy Duck Duck Go for a paltry $1B in cash (or less) or stock and then point to that acquisition everytime Google comes around asking to re-up their Google search priority contract for iPhones.

Google would pay an extra $5B the first year.

Case in point, there’s been some incredible advances in healthcare related gene editing & vaccine development via pressures from Covid.