Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google don't have to produce profit now. Remember that they didn't profit from search or ads for a long time. What they have to do is ensure no one else profits from some research, and to have a way of profiting in the long term. That is a lot easier to work out once something is successful, you know how people use it and it has become somewhat indispensable to users.
Isn’t that repeating the same thing I said? They are creating new cool tech, but they have to figure out how to make money from it, thus it’s not future proof. Android is successful, but apparently it’s not generating much profit for Google .
Not even close. They do not have to figure out how to make money from things now or even for several years. Or in some cases ever. The ad revenues can subsidise things forever.
For example their maps product (excluding premium) being free means no one else can realistically charge for an equivalent service. But all the people using it provide Google with a large amount of information such as places people actually want to go and where they don't. Those signals can be further used to improve their search relevance which keeps users away from competing search products.
asymco.com has various revenue numbers. At best Google is making around $4 per Android user per year in revenue (not profit). However if Google did not provide Android then they would be completely at the mercy of the likes of Apple and Microsoft who could make using and finding Google products on their devices hard.
Chrome is another example. Even if not a single person used Chrome, its effect was a massive reinvigoration of browsers (sandboxing, Javascript performance etc). Google depend on browsers to deliver their products so this helped ensure continued good delivery. (If users started abandoning browsers for native platform apps then again Google would be in danger of being shut out.)