It was also easy to convince users in 1998 to try a new search engine at least once. It&#x27;s one click, zero commitment. At the time the majority of people still weren&#x27;t using the Web regularly, so you&#x27;re acquiring users from a rapidly expanding base; people that had no allegiance or bias in relation to an existing search engine. Further, AltaVista &amp; Co sucked big time. Sifting through the volumes of spam in pre-Google search engines was a real pain.<p>Starting a Web&#x2F;mobile email client today? Nearly everyone already has an email address, and they&#x27;ve likely had it for a long time. They&#x27;re comfortable, they have a large index of emails at their current service, and eg Gmail is a &#x27;good enough&#x27; product for most users. Extremely different scenario vs the one Google faced.