I think people are seeing the products that Google has to maximize profit on (Youtube, AdSense, G+, etc...) and using those as the basis for the entire ecosystem that is Google. Google, as you pointed out, is much more than just the products that make money. I find it incredibly shortsighted to fault a company that tries to make money in order to pay for these great research projects.
I really don't mind ads. Its a free service to use, I can live with some ads, I still get my search that I like, I still get the experience that I like, and I patronize the company that provides this without any dime out of my pocket. Plus, Google is using these funds to research these multi-billion dollar initiatives like self-driving cars that I couldn't fathom to undertake on my own.
Android is a multi-billion dollar bet on mobile OS Calico is a billion dollar bet on extending life ChromeOS is a multi-billion dollar bet on laptop/TV ChromeBrowser is a hundred-million dollar bet on browsing Google Glass is a multi-billion dollar bet on next gen devices Self driving cars are a multi-billion dollar bet on, well, self driving cars.
None of these, save perhaps Android, has any chance of driving material revenue to the business in the next five years. Most of the hardware bets Google makes are money losers because they routinely subsidize hardware.
When I was there, I launched two product features that each cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars and were visible on the earnings-per-share number in the quarterly revenues we reported to Wall Street.
The argument might stand on Google.com, where the number of ads has increased. But for the majority of products (Gmail, Drive, Spreadsheets, Docs, Keep, Maps, Calendar, Books, Finance, Music, etc), it's hard to justify a profit motive argument.