Nothing is high priority enough to get funded because they have a firehose of money coming out of ads, compared to which nothing looks like a good enough opportunity.
Exactly. The IRR in investing more into ad platforms for Google is still higher than any other project so they keep investing in it and increasing their ad revenue. Alongside Meta, they have a duopoly (monopoly?) on that market for now so they are just milking it for all its worth.
You don't just build stuff for the sake of it. It has to be a better investment than what you currently have, and Google doesn't have anything better than doubling and tripling down on ads.
I understand that the market demands infinite growth but internally it feels like horseshit to see the ridiculous numbers and also get told that basically nothing is high priority enough to get funded.