>Google, more than any other company, has made the web a better place. The web was horrible dumping ground before Google - laced with Portals and flashing display ads, pathetic Search, fragmented content.

Perhaps you have not been around in the nineties / early 00, but the web was far more exciting and cool that the corporate BS that it is today.

And YouTube was acquired, it wasn't Google's. Same with Google Earth / Maps. And Chrome started as Webkit by Apple (based on KHTML). Google just bought all these things or threw money at forking them (Webkit), and made the web it's own monopoly.