[rcraft]

"search happens in the browser url bar, not google.com. search is a commodity. how exactly is google still relevant?"

Exactly his point and the one you are missing. Google had the foresight to invest in chrome, android, gmail, and Chromecast years ago.

At the same time people like you thought they were silly for pursuing products that had no short term revenue or ecosystem benefits.

[pinaceae]

that's a single platform. this is not the case on iOS and China Android (AOSP). iOS in the US is growing vs. Android.

same for PCs, Search is moving out of the browser (Win8, OSX), just something you type or say (Siri, Cortana).

yes, Google has Now, etc. but it has competition now and has not launched any new blockbuster since Android - and that one does not rake in huge profits. for that, they only have ads, embedded in search.