Until those expenses become immaterial in the grand scheme of things, they’re a car company.
Or perhaps that companies, like individuals, have facets.
Someone calling Google a search engine company is no more correct than you saying they are an advertising company, technology company etc, or in a negative sense, a monopoly.
Each of these epithets refer to the same entity, it's just that each emphasizes a particular trait over other traits for the point being made. A regulator is more much more likely to use "search engine" in conjugation with "monopoly" to characterize Google than with the term "technology company" since their goal is to highlight a potential case of abuse that is known to stem from such market power.
It can take YEARS for the market to get things right.
That's an obviously false narrative. Companies are preferring to stay out of the public markets for longer than ever, hence the rise of the unicorn.
I remember reading a Harvard Business Review article many years ago about how it was the go-to strategy for companies launching products in the 80/90s. To gain the "First mover advantage". Turns out there's far too much risk for too little (potential) reward, which the graveyard of countless dead first-mover companies/products attests to.
The dot-com boom really put a nail in the coffin of that idea. Especially for tech companies and any industry with highly capitalized organizations who can move quickly is far more valuable than being the first available.
Plus you get to learn from the expensive mistakes the first companies almost always make.
For example look at Coca-Cola's history of sodas. At a certain scale they realized that buying out new brands was cheaper and less risky than doing the experimentation themselves
I'm truly wondering how sustainable is this and how hard the market correction will be...