> is DDG viable competition for Google? Will it ever be?
For search? Absolutely, it is today.
However, Google figured out a long time ago that they could lock people in by offering a hundred other services too. DDG has no maps, no mail, no image search, no video search, no drive, no docs, no news, no book search, no academic paper search, no patent search, no stock graphs, no language translation, and so on. For some of those, it can link off to other services, none of which are viable competitors to the Google equivalents.
What do you mean by "locking people in"? I don't have gmail or youtube account, or picassa or any of that crap, but just use their search because it is orders of magnitude more relevant than DDG for my queries. And I consider maps, scholar, patents to be part of the search.
For search? Absolutely, it is today.
However, Google figured out a long time ago that they could lock people in by offering a hundred other services too. DDG has no maps, no mail, no image search, no video search, no drive, no docs, no news, no book search, no academic paper search, no patent search, no stock graphs, no language translation, and so on. For some of those, it can link off to other services, none of which are viable competitors to the Google equivalents.