You're valuing curl incorrectly. For example, an engineer isn't valued based on what he enables at the company. S/he's valued based on what they can deliver that others can't. Maybe I manage the database at my company and the database is arguably one of the most important pieces of infrastructure but that doesn't mean I have unlimited salary. I can only negotiate as high as someone else is willing to undercut me to perform the same duties. If you apply that to curl, how much of it is irreplaceable?

Google didn't just openly license Android out of the goodness of their hearts. It was a business decision and the Android business does deliver them value, but not as much as Apple's business.