Not sure why your comment gets downvoted. It's a fair point, especially since non-geek people don't have a clue who produces the apps they have installed on their smartphone.

> non-geek people don't have a clue who produces the apps

Funny, that sounds to me like a counterargument to the idea that this makes things look like they come from google.

In general people don't have a clue, but they obviously know the source of some Google apps like Gmail and search. But then they associate all apps with that design pattern with Google, since they​ do know Google apps.

I think this is the ultimate goal from Google's perspective at least

I'm not convinced it's their ultimate goal, or even one of their goals at all, since poor implementations could water down their branding. But it is definitely a side effect.

That's a very cynical view. I think their ultimate goal is getting nice looking and functioning apps on their platform.

Material is an Interaction Design play first, a design play second and maaaaybe a branding play third but whatever. If it makes apps and the web a better place because every Joe Schmoe dev can focus on functionality instead of design (which a lot of people simply suck at) that's great.

But also not strictly on their platform. There's top-down "encouragement" from management to use Material Design in all their iOS apps too, which isn't really being a good citizen of the platform.