A bid to break up Alphabet Inc.’s Google is one of the options being considered by the Justice Department after a landmark court ruling found that the company monopolized the online search market, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations.
I think Google would definitely pay to be the default search engine for Chrome, and if Android was also split, then they would probably charge Chrome to be the default installed app.
Regardless though, I’m sure they’d be able to generate revenue from services akin to Google’s new AI features, where more “advanced” functionality is a subscription, that some users would be willing to pay, subsidizing the development cost for all the non-paying users.