And they get it for free, using your electricity and hardware for the AI and also avoids some liability that comes with your personal data/EU compliance.
DDG, i switched when startpage got bought, and it was terrible, but i stayed for the !bang and just used !g sometimes, but it kept improving while google got worse, IMO it's better than google now (and i didn't even get the AI stuff yet).
Not to mention Sony probably got a lot of new accounts registered and linked in these few days, so they already got what they wanted and walking back doesn't change much...
I think sad ppl eat more cake