Google's core business is advertising.
one product. ninety percent of revenue. unbroken since 2003.

everything else Google builds
is either:
A) an attempt to find the next advertising surface
B) an attempt to keep you inside Google long enough to show you ads
C) a research project that never quite became a business
D) something a competitor was doing that Google felt threatened by

the products that get killed are usually C or D.
the products that survive are the ones that serve A or B.

this is not a criticism of the business model.
advertising is legal. search is genuinely useful.
it is a criticism of the relationship Google creates
with users of products in category C and D.

you use the product for years.
you organize your life around it.
you tell people about it.
then Google gets bored, or threatened, or both,
and the product dies with a blog post that says
"we are sunsetting this service."

sunsetting.
as if the product is going to rest peacefully.
as if your data is going somewhere nice.

Google Search was the best search engine ever built.
past tense is intentional.

2003 Google: type a thing, get the thing.
2012 Google: type a thing, get the thing, also some ads.
2018 Google: type a thing, get ads, then a featured snippet, then more ads, then results.
2022 Google: type a thing, get ads, AI overview that may be wrong, people also ask, more ads, local pack, knowledge graph, then results on page two.
2025 Google: the results are still there. they are on the page. the page has a lot going on.

the DOJ antitrust case (2023–2024) established:
Google paid Apple $18 billion per year to be the default search engine on Safari.
if Google is the best search engine,
why does it cost $18 billion a year to stay the default?
the field does not answer this question.
the field just files it.

the core product still works.
the field uses it daily.
the field also remembers what it was like when it was faster,
less cluttered, and not trying to answer the question
before you finished asking it.