[bdefore]

You're proposing then that Google is in a disappointment loop. I think that's much more true for the technologically versed than the broader public. If they shut down Gmail/Maps/YouTube/Chromecast that'd breach the layman dyke, but I can't see them doing that.

Google I feel's is this age's General Electric. They already borrowed all the wrong ideas from Jack Welch. Most people, if they dug a bit, just want Google to keep what it's already built running and not charge for it. It's just not a place you expect radically good innovation to come from anymore. So, like your Whirlpool dishwasher, you expect it to do its thing, never rave about it to anyone, and moan about it when it breaks.

[technofiend]

There seems to be widespread unhappiness in tech circles about Google search trending towards an ad delivery system and quality of search results going down. And at least in tech circles a slow exodus via people de-Googling. So yeah I agree with you their main services are popular enough for now. Yet Tik Tok is slowly eclipsing Youtube for watched minutes in some demographics, so some mainstream non-technical users are going where they feel served best. What does that mean for search and e-mail? Again I agree with you: not much until and unless something very compelling comes along.