My take on Google X projects is to do cool things that may find alternate revenue streams to selling ads (or just do cool things, without necessarily having a business plan up front). Sure Google makes most of their money from ads, but they are trying lots of different things to make money elsewhere. Self driving cars, Ara, Google Glass, and others weren't trying to push ads, they were trying to find new products to make money in some other way (maybe).

Google's push to expand their Cloud offering is also showing them trying to pursue non-ad based revenue.

Google knowing where you go could make their models of you more valuable. Now they can specifically target ads based on where you go and when. Sitting in the cab waiting to get where you are going what are you going to do? Pull out your smart phone and see an ad offering a sale at a competitor to where you told the cab to go.

Fuck that, I'll walk. I live a life with the least ads as possible and even then I am smothered by them.

I like open source and open data in principle, but hate how it is driving more of the economy to an ad-supported model.

I don't see the connection. The core code and data of ad-supported companies like Google and Facebook are closed, while the open source companies and projects like Red Hat and OpenStreeMap are not usually ad-supported.

If that's the end game google can license their software to other car vendors. No need to giveaway the data.

And they run MY software, without giving much back.

-- disgruntled open source dev