There’s a lot of reasons to own it, one potential profit source being selling what the default search engine is. Just because Google doesn’t own it doesn’t mean they won’t pay to be the default search. They pay a lot for this on Firefox. (Yes, this is being looked into to and may stop, but they can still sell being an option for the default search engine, or other things.)
why would anyone buy it when it’s primary profit-generating activity is driving traffic to google
There’s a lot of reasons to own it, one potential profit source being selling what the default search engine is. Just because Google doesn’t own it doesn’t mean they won’t pay to be the default search. They pay a lot for this on Firefox. (Yes, this is being looked into to and may stop, but they can still sell being an option for the default search engine, or other things.)
Your right.
Your left, my right?