> Froogle (est 2002) and has continued to exist as one incarnate or the other

Indeed, this article is about Froogle (now Google Shopping search) moving back from the change Google made in 2012 to become a paid advertising platform rather than a open-index search engine.

Before they made that change and simultaneously rebranded from Google Product Search to Google Shopping you could make a search there and be fairly sure of finding lots of websites selling what you wanted, and you could compare prices between them easily. But Google didn't get a cut, so now if you repeated the same search, if you get relevant results at all you'll only get the bottom of the barrel shops with inflated prices.

Google certainly has tried to attack Amazon, but the only way they're trying to reduce that duopoly is to insert themselves as a monopoly player! By heavily promoting their advertising platform and pushing deep integrations between merchants and their platform they're forcing out smaller independent shops and marketplaces.

Trying to recreate Amazon, just better, is doomed to failure. The alternative of iterating on their at-the-time working product and extending the usability and visibility of alternative options would have been far better. Amazon's ridiculous 20% fees would get found out soon enough if consumers could actually see a viable alternative.

All that considiered, a better replacement for Paypal integrated with Google and other services is something missing from the world and it's a shame their lack of commitment meant Google Pay hasn't taken off in most places.