I don't think "more tech savvy" is part of the mechanism. GMail was originally invite-only, and Googlers tend to be fairly well-off, and so their friends tend

I don't think "more tech savvy" is part of the mechanism. GMail was originally invite-only, and Googlers tend to be fairly well-off, and so their friends tend to be fairly well-off. As for "Google targets wealthier and smarter users", I don't think it's intentional. If you go to any tech talks given by their usability folks, they say they intentionally don't do user personas, precisely because they want to target "everybody". I find it far more likely that they design things that work slightly better for them, and their friends who help them test, who, again, tend to be of similar socioeconomic background.