And this giant, mature company isn't sacrificing margins for top-line growth, they're actually increasing margins at the same time.

Truly breathtaking.

My own experience from Search and YouTube is that they have massively turned the knob to the right. I don't know why they are chasing revenue growth with such craze. It makes me worried that the leadership don't know what's Alphabet's next big thing so they are just milking the cow while they can.

2021 was like catching lightning in a bottle[1]: because of lockdowns and WFH, 2021 was a monster of a year for online platforms at the expense of brick-and-mortar and traditional platforms. A lot of consumer and marketing dollars were redirected to online retailers/ad campaigns. All that drive-time- and ballgame placement ads went to Google/Facebook/Youtube and a thousands of other ad networks

1. Not that Google wasn't going to grow, but the ad growth was absolutely juiced. At the beginning of the pandemic, a bunch of Ads that had been filmed ended up not airing because they showed happy people outdoors, unmasked and having fun.

Somehow Google captured a lot more of that lightning than Facebook did.

"Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. startled investors with a sharper-than-expected decline in profits and a gloomy outlook in its first earnings report since Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg outlined a pivot to the metaverse."

"Meta shares plunged after the results were announced, dropping more than 20%."

"The company said it expected revenue growth to slow because users were spending less time on its more lucrative services. Meta cited inflation as a weight on advertiser spending ..."

https://archive.is/MOYi6

That limit is imposed by competitors who deliver a better user experience. So far most competitors are doing a much worse job.

Microsoft should be a much bigger threat, but they seem to rely on their ability to set defaults for Windows and throw obstacles in the path of users who want to change the defaults.

That's not a better user experience, it's abuse of their dominant market position.

Google has to re-earn their position every day since competitors are only a click away.

you're sure?

I think I am very good at numbers, comparatively speaking. But these number is till mind boggling. It is hard to comprehend how and why they could continue to grow. With $140B cash while Android is still half polished. GCP not competing. And killing half a dozen random products and services from time to time.