| I doubt Google has as simplistic view of their business as you do. Google's bottom line is the same as everyone else's: making money. Currently, the ads are very lucrative for them and they use the money from ad business to both expand the ad business (like investing in YouTube or Android) AND try to find other sources of revenue (e.g. Google Fiber or Google Apps for enterprise). You can't assume that Google is terminally stupid and can't see past their current business model. Google Fiber is not free. If people use Comcast, they'll see as many ads from Google as if they were using Fiber. Google can estimate how much ADDITIONAL ad revenue they could expect per user from Fiber vs. Comcast usage and that's probably not much. At $70 or $120/month, this can be very profitable business (long-term, of course, initial investment is huge). Outside of US, companies make good profit at lower prices. Same goes for self-driving cars: transportation is a massive industry. Taxis alone are $10 billion industry. Personal car ownership and use is massive. If Google could get a piece of that business, it could be more profitable than their ad business. |