Ok fair, maybe "made back" wasn't the most precise wording. Unless you think these savings are ephemeral, these are recurring earnings growing at a similar rate

Ok fair, maybe "made back" wasn't the most precise wording. Unless you think these savings are ephemeral, these are recurring earnings growing at a similar rate to the company overall. As a GOOG shareholder, your stock is worth the same if the company has $600M in cash or if they use that cash to increase earnings $20M. In that sense "they've made it back".