While Google and Page are a big deal, I am doubtful the industry would look that much different if they hadn’t hit the scene. Yahoo and Alta Vista were decent search engines that would have evolved more had Google not made the leap when they did.
“Yahoo and Alta Vista were decent search engines”
True.
Now we’re down to a dog pile....
Sounds about right. Someone else would’ve done search that way and turned users into product through advertising. Google abandoned their “do no evil” motto and wastes endless money on tech projects that are inevitably canceled with few exceptions.