[katovatzschyn]

Maybe it's not reasonable now or ever but I'd quite love to think of Google as a company capable of doing things that are immensely interesting but have no obvious, immediate, practical "use."

I don't know if they are there quite yet. It seems to me that they still strongly incentivize shipping products and making things people will use within in their corporate culture. I might be wrong. There could be a light coming on.