>Google has its hands in too many pies, actively hurts other industries, and they're creepy af.
The most disgusting part is they are unfairly using their search and ads (i.e. data) to set up subsidiaries to compete with their own ad customers and bid up the price of ads to their own customers.
Say you are an airline or airfare aggregator. Google knows the market size (search), they have a good idea of your marketing budget and online ROI. Once they see you have a thriving business/product/industry they create their own competitor. Organically Google's competitor will float to the top of Search, if they don't outright make a "native" interactive tool that appears above ads and organic search results. As if thats not shady enough, they start buying their own ads (money is just going from their left hand to their right hand) which now the cost of ads for you has increased because you are competing with a Google company that is getting them for free. Now your options are spend more on ads for a smaller slice of the market or just packup an go home leaving Google as the industry leader (which based on history they really didn't even want in the first place as they are likely to deprecate their product, leaving the market with no product/service provider).
And yet that is exactly what you want in a lot of cases. Companies like DeepMind and Open AI do not run on thoughts and prayers; without subsidy from other areas, industry-upending research and development would have a hard time showing up and gaining traction. Google Search, regardless how bad it may have been for consumer welfare in the search space, has been a net boon. Do you think any other private company could have afforded something like Street View?
Perhaps a company that's already involved in logistics, that could augment their transport fleet to have scanning vehicles? So Amazon, FedEx/UPS/DHL, the U.S. Postal Service?
Amazon did not have a proper door-to-door delivery service until very, very recently. And even now it is limited to a few locations. The rest are hardly tech companies, Google Maps and Street View are as much about UI and implementation as the actual photography. Most of the other companies named would probably only sell raw data to law enforcement and finance, your average consumer would not be able to have access.
The most disgusting part is they are unfairly using their search and ads (i.e. data) to set up subsidiaries to compete with their own ad customers and bid up the price of ads to their own customers.
Say you are an airline or airfare aggregator. Google knows the market size (search), they have a good idea of your marketing budget and online ROI. Once they see you have a thriving business/product/industry they create their own competitor. Organically Google's competitor will float to the top of Search, if they don't outright make a "native" interactive tool that appears above ads and organic search results. As if thats not shady enough, they start buying their own ads (money is just going from their left hand to their right hand) which now the cost of ads for you has increased because you are competing with a Google company that is getting them for free. Now your options are spend more on ads for a smaller slice of the market or just packup an go home leaving Google as the industry leader (which based on history they really didn't even want in the first place as they are likely to deprecate their product, leaving the market with no product/service provider).