There have been hints at Apple building something but who knows. It's estimated Google's payment is 15-20% of Apple's revenue.
The UK CMA report reckons a serious worldwide general search competitor would require about £20bn of investment, but Apple are probably one of the best fits to match that task.
Think the main problem is that Google's CPM per 1000 searches is more than double Bing's, and the likes of DDG earn less via Bing ads. G will always outbid everyone else to be the default preference, excluding competitors and turning a profit from it.
Perhaps their ad tech should be decentralised and allowed to be used by other parties to serve ads. Just an idea, since it puts everyone else on a level playing field. I imagine my boss wouldn't like that idea anyways as the high CPM is partly at the expense of user privacy.
Someone's good with photoshop:
