While innovation is often good, it's a side issue.
Google's problem was deciding to go all-in on advertising as essentially the only revenue source for the entire company. Worse, as others have noted, this revenue source has the side effect of cheapening and distorting their main claim to fame (i.e., search).
Apple and Microsoft both have numerous revenue-generating products. Google basically just has ads (all the other stuff they have is a rounding error).
Now, Google has had other products that could have become revenue streams, but they have a terrible history of killing those products off. They've overtaken Oracle as the place where good products go to die.
If they don't get the advertising people on a leash, I don't see Google winding up anywhere good over the next decade or so.
Google's problem was deciding to go all-in on advertising as essentially the only revenue source for the entire company. Worse, as others have noted, this revenue source has the side effect of cheapening and distorting their main claim to fame (i.e., search).
Apple and Microsoft both have numerous revenue-generating products. Google basically just has ads (all the other stuff they have is a rounding error).
Now, Google has had other products that could have become revenue streams, but they have a terrible history of killing those products off. They've overtaken Oracle as the place where good products go to die.
If they don't get the advertising people on a leash, I don't see Google winding up anywhere good over the next decade or so.