I don't get your reasoning at all. You're saying that Google wants to feed its AI as much data as possible while at the same time not appearing too dominant. L

I don't get your reasoning at all. You're saying that Google wants to feed its AI as much data as possible while at the same time not appearing too dominant. Launching a bunch of terrible and failing copycat projects and closing down actually useful "niche" projects sure helps with not appearing too dominant, but it does nothing to help feed Google's AI. It also does nothing to prevent Google's competitors from becoming dominant and getting locked out of important data sources like social interactions (Facebook) or product search (Amazon). I agree with syshum. Supporting federated, open protocols would make much more sense. It would make Google appear benign while at the same time granting them access to a lot of data and help keep competitors at bay.