Keep in mind that advertising was very different back then. Untargeted, often not measurable, and (on the internet) often consisted of a fast-moving "punch the monkey" banner.

Much more than just using it as a revenue source, Google more or less invented modern advertising.

They own the most popular video hosting site, the 5th most popular social network, the most popular search engine, the fastest internet service publicly available in the US, and the most popular web browser, and you just said they don't do anything better than advertising.

To make money. YouTube, Google+, Google Search, and Chrome don't make money, other than being vehicles for advertising. (I don't know anything about their internet service.)

While you're not wrong, this is an important statement. Fact is, youtube, google search, and chrome are all best of class products (arguably). Google is an ecosystem that keeps you by offering the best of everything. And it's all monetarily free. But this keeps you looking at advertising. People pay good money to be the first result of google. Youtube ads are generally noninvasive enough to sit through. Would you pay for google search, or youtube? I might, but eventually a free competitor would pop up and shift the momentum. Google is interesting in that other than side ventures, they have tons of great products that all tie into their only real revenue stream - advertising. And for now, weighing the pros vs the cons of this, I'm ok with it.

Youtube is certainly not best of class, it's 'only' the most popular.

It's where I go to look for videos in category (X) because it's the best.

It's not about being best on class on video quality or features (which could be Vimeo for example).

It's about being best of class for being a video repository that actually has the huge majority of the videos people want.

YouTube is likely as profitable as Netflix.

http://news.investors.com/technology-click/051914-701377-goo...

Well you could argue they would have no real ability to financialize ads if they didn't do real work on those products.

Not to mention the most popular email and maps

But apart from the most popular video hosting site, search engine, web browser, web email and maps, what has Google ever done for us?

In case anyone doesn't get the Monty Python reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso

He was talking about their uninventive business plan. Not their consumer products. They're plan is the same as all other tech companies just they did/do it better.

And the world's most popular mobile OS.

True, but in terms of how to make money out of a huge mass of users, advertising is usually the best bet.

However, I often think there's room for more directly paid search as opposed to side-funded with advertising. Afterall, companies pay for (re)search all the time. They pay for their own employees to do research and write reports. They pay marketing companies for research, etc...

Do people really need a search result of just web addresses back in 0.1s, when they could get not just the address, but the actual information they need in 30s? I'd pay for a service that could do that.

Maybe - but Google's Driverless Car looks awesome! I'm not a fan of Google Glass, but that's interesting. And Android?