The problem of course is that what Google actually IS and what people THINK Google is are two completely different things. Google is an ad company, always remember that.
Google makes its money from advertising, but in order for it to place ads it needs to serve relevant results; serving "tailored" results because they generate more clicks is short-sighted (well, that's the argument anyway). If people become so distrustful of Google that they stop using it, and use a combination of DDG or Wolfram Alpha for example, then there will be no more ads for Google to serve.
We're admittedly very far from this, but the fact that high-profile people such as PG start to complain about it publicly (and not just old anonymous grumps like me) should make Google think.
We'll see.
or Google could serve ads by developing a suite of web apps, or a mobile operating system, or a even a social networking site.
Google could even serve ads on other people's websites when people visit those websites without going through their search service.
Anyone know what proportion of their revenue comes from ad placement on their own product pages?
>Are you aware that Google runs an entire ad network?
Which would mean that they would want to keep such third party sites interesting, fast and high quality as well. Chrome, Analytics and their other similar products/services are hence justified.