from the article "Six years after Microsoft launched Bing and lost billions of dollars in a long-shot attempt to take on Google, Microsoft appears to be nearing a significant milestone: the Bing search engine is no longer bleeding cash. " No where does the article state they have even started to gain back the costs lol

Yes it is. The only place it's got traction is USA, and the USA is steadily becoming less of a global influence. That's not hyperbole, surely.

In a game where the user is key, having a small slice of the user pie gets you nowhere.