Google was the first actually-decent search engine - it allowed people to access the internet. All the others are social networks and largely rely on the networ

Google was the first actually-decent search engine - it allowed people to access the internet. All the others are social networks and largely rely on the network effect and being the one that becomes trendy, and thus aren't valid comparisons. If you can spot and build the next Google then you may not need marketing, but those opportunities are rare.