Re:Altavista: The rise and fall of the biggest pre-Google se...
by michaelcampbell on Saturday February 16, 2019 @11:34AM
(#19179366)
At least some people in the TWIT podcast family have repeated many times the idea that Brin or Page had at one point said early on that "advertising ruins things" and this wasn't their initial goal.
I don't know if the information is true, but I know I've heard it more than once.
Honestly, I doubt that was even Google's plan for the first years of its existence. It was more "Hey, we made this neat search thing, let's see if we can figure out a way to make money from it".