Their special skill is ensuring they are the place where all ad money goes by being better at getting eyeballs for that money and being better at targeting ads to those eyeballs. Many many many companies have tried to usurp one or both sides of that without success.
You may not like their business model but they are objectively very good at what they do.
The above comment also completely sidesteps the monopolist and regulatory capture factors in difficulty to usurp Google, and thus incorrectly implies that a level playing field exists.
The problem is nobody knows if they are really better at targeting ads. They say so, of course, but who could prove it? Google is the main player in the ad industry and when they say that they are the best, everybody hears them. If a small player tried to say so, nobody would be aware of that, even if they were right.
Are they though? Why is TikTok a thing if Google is so great at what they do?
Google has great research going on, but their products seem to be mostly coasting along. There's still some growth, but is that more than inertia and network effect?
Where the large innovation in their product that keeps them ahead?
Coasting is exactly how I'd describe increase revenue by 6x in 10 years. "Coasting."
> Are they though? Why is TikTok a thing if Google is so great at what they do?
So your bar for success is having a perceptual monopoly on the whole world? Or just the digital world?
You're jumping to mental gymnastic to not acknowledge that Google has consistently grown while being highly profitable. It's a massive success as a company.
> Coasting is exactly how I'd describe increase revenue by 6x in 10 years. "Coasting."
Again: inertia and network-effect.
> It's a massive success as a company.
Undoubtedly. And they appear to be great at not failing. Like any bureaucracy, that works until it doesn't. What new markets have they created or taken over in the past 10 years?
