Also in case you were curious what tipped me off was seeing just how common it is for Chromebooks to not have Google as their default search engine. Totally not the intended outcome of Google creating Chrome OS.
Yes this is exactly right. There is an industry of chrome extensions that exist to change the search engine to something truly unwanted (yahoo search anyone?) so that the extension author can extract rev share. They often advertise the extension as something else to trick people into installing. The target is often kids. As someone who worked at Google, I was surprised / shocked to see how many kids get targeted by these extensions. “Want to play this cool game? Just install this extension.” It is a really problematic thing without an obvious solution. Google has to fight against unwanted extensions but absolutely shouldn’t hide behind that acting like it is okay to punish competing search engines in the process.
If Android didn’t exist, some other OS would take its place. Samsung would have developed its own most likely, which would at this stage probably resemble something very similar to what we have today. Only difference is that Google would have been in a position more similar to the one it faces with Apple.
I agree also the point you are making. If Apple somehow commanded 90+% of the smartphone market then they would likely face much regulation.