2021 was like catching lightning in a bottle[1]: because of lockdowns and WFH, 2021 was a monster of a year for online platforms at the expense of brick-and-mortar and traditional platforms. A lot of consumer and marketing dollars were redirected to online retailers/ad campaigns. All that drive-time- and ballgame placement ads went to Google/Facebook/Youtube and a thousands of other ad networks

1. Not that Google wasn't going to grow, but the ad growth was absolutely juiced. At the beginning of the pandemic, a bunch of Ads that had been filmed ended up not airing because they showed happy people outdoors, unmasked and having fun.

That limit is imposed by competitors who deliver a better user experience. So far most competitors are doing a much worse job.

Microsoft should be a much bigger threat, but they seem to rely on their ability to set defaults for Windows and throw obstacles in the path of users who want to change the defaults.

That's not a better user experience, it's abuse of their dominant market position.