I agree. 99% of Google's top-line revenues last fiscal year came from their adwords/adsense empire... every single other web serivce they offer accounts for 1%

I agree. 99% of Google's top-line revenues last fiscal year came from their adwords/adsense empire... every single other web serivce they offer accounts for 1% combined. "Business" is about making money. Let's just agree that without revenue, you have no "business". And this suggests that even Google is having problems with monetizing products aside from their golden goose. This probably slightly irritates Google, but it should really scare those of us who don't have a golden goose yet. We shouldn't be interested in creating products that are "built to flip", as my ex-CEO liked to say. We should be interested in creating products that create tangible, sustainable value... and that means making money. Some startups can do that by offering products for free, and scaling up. Others will have to charge for their offerings, commensurate with how targeted and value-creating their offering is. It will be a combination of the two. The idea that every internet startup can survive by giving away their service will lead to one thing: disaster. At some point the Googles and Yahoos of the world will not be able to explain acquisitions to their shareholders, because they have a fiduciary responsibility to create wealth. If the acquisitions do not create wealth, they will stop making them. But that lesson will take years to learn, in my opinion.