And because they didn’t perfect their chat and video calling app strategy, it’s fine for companies to have unrestricted access to personal data without any oversight.

No one is arguing in favour of that, but the statement that all the data lets them perfect their strategies and shut out competitors is provably wrong.

I am also frustrated with Google's communication apps. Strategy is one thing, execution is another ;)

Don't forget Google Plus, and that email killer whose name I cannot recall.

Google+ and Wave were both doomed because they were invite-only. If you have to ration invites, it isn't much of a social network. Invite-only successfully created artificial demand for Gmail because invited users could immediately communicate with non-Gmail users. That didn't work for Google+ or Wave since they didn't interoperate with services that people already used.

If only Google would have had enough data to predict that!