Every year, Google pays Apple an estimated $20 billion.
Not for innovation.
Not for hardware access.
Not to make iPhones faster.
No, purely to be the default search engine on Apple devices.
Why? Because Google deeply understands something most people forget:
Whoever owns the default wins the behavior.
Whoever wins the behavior, wins the market.
The power of being the default
Most people don’t change their settings.
Safari opens → Google pops up → you search → done.
No one even thinks twice about alternatives.
That’s the genius behind Google’s deal with Apple:
visibility as a strategy not by accident, but by design.
They’re doing the same with Samsung paying billions to make Gemini the default AI tool.
Not necessarily because it’s better than ChatGPT or Claude,
but because presence matters.
Visibility → Familiarity → Trust
Let’s be honest: people (including me 😅) are lazy creatures of habit.
What we see most often feels familiar.
What feels familiar becomes trusted.
And what’s trusted gets chosen: again and again.
Google knows this.
They literally buy their way into your daily behavior.
Not once, but continuously.
Because they understand this chain:
Visibility creates familiarity.
Familiarity builds trust.
Trust drives market share.
And that trust reinforces itself.
What people keep using starts to feel normal.
Until it’s no longer a choice: it’s a reflex.
So, what does that mean for you?
You’re (probably) not a tech giant.
You don’t have $20 billion lying around to buy your visibility (or if you do: call me for sure 😏).
But the lesson still stands:
If even Google invests massively just to stay top of mind,
why would you leave your visibility to chance?
Whether you’re building a personal brand, a business, or content, remember:
👉 If people don’t see you, they don’t think of you.
👉 If they don’t think of you, they choose someone else.
Simple.
Become the default in your niche
You don’t always have to be the best.
But you do have to be top of mind.
That’s the real game not for attention, but for habit.
(Consistency wins, you know that by now)
So ask yourself:
🧠 What are you doing today to become the default in your audience’s mind?
📱 Or are you waiting for someone else to claim that spot?
PS: Want more insights like this? You can subscribe to my newsletter here.
