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>Most other Google products mostly live server-side, entangled with proprietary internal services and frameworks. Android is the world's most popular OS and ca

>Most other Google products mostly live server-side, entangled with proprietary internal services and frameworks. Android is the world's most popular OS and can be used without Google Play Services as the billion plus devices it runs on can attest to. And then there's Chromium, the open source version of the world's most popular browser. I don't recall these products needing to live server side nor be entangled with proprietary internal services or frameworks. Additionally, there are probably no other projects that have had as much code taken freely and reused by other companies and people than these 2 open source products.

hobofan 9y ago
Yes, that reasoning doesn't apply to all their products, but both Android and Chrome have a big business value for Google, as they are web clients, and allow Google to shape the web in a significant way. Especially with being in control of both a major website and a browser on desktop & mobile they can push for technologies that serve their websites needs like AMP, SPDY, QUIC, etc. like a Facebook never could.