It could remove Google as a choice for users of safari? That seems like an insane thing to present as an approach apple might take. They could stop making it the default, but I think making it in unselectable actually would upset users enough to cause issues, at least in the short term.

I wish my life was that uncomplicated.

"If this Court prohibits Google from sharing revenue for search distribution, Apple would have two unacceptable choices. It could still let users in the United States choose Google as a search engine for Safari, but Apple could not receive any share of the resulting revenue, so Google would obtain valuable access to Apple's users at no cost. Or Apple could remove Google Search as a choice on Safari. But because customers prefer Google, removing it as an option would harm both Apple and its customers."

and "... it is unlikely that Apple will decide to create a search engine in the future, regardless of what remedies are ordered in this case."

Source: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/zgvoalybovd/...

Apple is sounding like a cellular company pre-iPhone where the carriers demanded a cut of every transaction on the phone. They saw users as their asset and did everything they could to but themselves in the middle of every phone transaction. I'm talking about the time of $3 ringtones.

For Apple today, I can understand the argument for fees in the app store because there are real development and ongoing maintenance costs for that. But why should they get paid for a company to be a search engine option? How are they earning that money?

That is entitled. Should every web site share profits with Apple because they are accessed via Safari.

Maybe Google should stop paying $15B/year on its own then...