It's like complaining that the poor are getting services when NASA needs more money. There are already many translation options for major languages like English. There were no free automated translation services for some of these 110 languages, until now. I'm delighted that Google is spending money on minor languages, with little promise of making a financial return.

No it's not. For one thing, i'm not saying Google should forsake all other exploration of translation options until it perfects translating well between major languages. I'm just pointing out that this is a big gap in quality that they shouldn't forget in their drive towards something more flashy like over 100 new languages (otherwise a good thing, having those as options).

Secondly, i'm comparing a persistent deficiency inside one specific area of one company to another new project inside that same area of that same company. That's a lot more reasonable to do than whining about any random global disaster because some company X or government agency gets extra money for some project completely unrelated to said global disaster. It's much more absurd to compare those latter two as a point against one of them.