Google is a consumer software company. Consumers aren't willing to pay for software.

The article is not about standalone software. It is about an operating system that will be used to sell hardware. Apple is proof that consumers are willing to pay enough for hardware to keep a company profitable.

They could and it would make them a few million dollars, not billions of dollars.

Selling hardware products that people want without advertising or collecting user data unnecessarily seems to be making Apple slightly more than a “few million”.....

> I’ve got a better idea.

Except that is an awful idea.

Since when was it an awful idea to sell something that the market valued enough for a company to make a profit without subsidizing the product with ads?

There are many such companies you can go to. For instance, go here: www.microsoft.com, but also www.apple.com, and so on.

Attempting to out-compete those companies has not historically been a very successful tactic. I think that's what's meant.

We aren’t talking about a little unknown poorly funded startup. We are talking about Google.

Even on the other end of the scale,I subscribe to Backblaze and Evernote.