Here is a problem with your agrument.
For a new player to enter the market and knock off the number one guy you can not be just as good or even slightly better to take marketshare. To take the market you need something that is heads over heals better than the other guy and even then you need something to encorage people to try your product.
In this case Bing may only be slightly better than google but to get people to give it a chance they needed cash back which might of been costing MS less than normal advertising because the places it was giving deals to were giving MS a slight cut of the sale so part of that case back was coming from the places the deals were link 2.
People here go in and bash bing because it is not google and because it is MS. They refuse to give it a chance to see if it really is better.
What, then, is preventing MS from developing an algorithmic search engine which would be "head over heals" better than Google?
The cell phone market happens to be, by far, a much more daunting arena for gaining traction, yet Apple managed to do so, without offering cash back incentives for purchasing, or using an iPhone.
The large array of computers and devices available are aggressively priced for consumers, yet, Apple offers no cash rebates, nor do they hand out money, to fill their stores.
Slightly better doesn't cut it, to compete against a well established Google, although, IMO, Bing is more than slightly worse, at best.
Bing ain't no Google - and bribing consumers to use it won't change that.
