>This is also why GMail, YouTube, Search, GCP, Android, and others aren’t going anywhere. They’re making money, they’re core to the business, and there’s plenty of opportunity to work on them and get promoted. They all also share one thing in common: deep down they’re frontends for search or advertising (GCP and Apps are an exception because they make money on their own). Measuring and proving impact on search numbers is a well-known promo narrative at Google, so those products are a safe bet for employees and users. Streaming game services, not so much.
This, right here is the key, and what I think most people miss, including the original article. Hell, I missed it myself for a long time: Google is not a platform company as the original article asserts. They are an advertising company. That is Google's bread and butter, and has been since day one. The products and platforms that stick around do so because they are or become successful funnels or front ends for advertising.
As much as the tech culture of the Internet loves to bitch about advertising (myself included), unto itself, it is not a solely an evil thing. Oh, it absolutely can be turned to evil ends; see any of a myriad complaints about Facebook. However, I think the pairing of ads with search has been damn useful in a way that balances with the potential for evil. As an example, when I'm searching for specific lubricating grease for my bicycle's bearings, I very much appreciate seeing an ad for a vendor who's willing to sell me a single tube thereof, instead of having only the web search listings of vendors who require a minimum order size of 1 shipping pallet. Google did right paring advertising with search. To use a 'corporate bullshit' word, Search and ads synergize well.
The froth of Google's other products and platforms makes more sense when looked at in that light. A company that sits still will eventually get passed by someone else who correctly sensed changes in the market and business environment, and thus eventually die. So of course Google is going to be trying to come up with all manner of things that leverage the Internet and their massive infrastructure; one of those may well be the next big thing that funnels more money in to advertising. No small part of this is that Google employs a great many nerds like you and I, people who have no trouble inventing cool new things you can do on the Internet. But sadly, a great many of those cool things don't fit well with Google's advertising-based business model, as evidenced by the constant product froth.