[stephenr]

Can't reply lower.

The idea that Google will somehow abandon it's current advertising/data mining business model is ridiculous.

In 2013 Google's non-advertising revenue was less than 9% of their total revenue.

For average people, the $0 price tag is one of the big appeals about Google's various services - of course those things are really just ways to acquire product (i.e. people) data/eyeballs.

If you look at a lot of their online services outside of straight search, they do not have the best experience, they are simply free and "good enough" to squeeze out or marginalise paid services.

[myrryr]

I didn't say they were going to abandon it, I said I believed that the other parts of their business would grow bigger then the advertising part.

Yes, it is only around 9% now, but it used to be 0% and it is growing fast.

[stephenr]

But how much of that growth is true growth and how much is about sudden new income streams because of purchases.

e.g. they buy a company like Nest, which has a commercial product. Suddenly they have a lot of extra non-ad based revenue, giving the appearance of growth.