That's the rub. Google's trick was created by a bunch of CS grad students at Stanford, and annihilated Yahoo! (who had a very similar trick) in less than a deca

That's the rub. Google's trick was created by a bunch of CS grad students at Stanford, and annihilated Yahoo! (who had a very similar trick) in less than a decade. One of Google's biggest competitors was started by an undergrad in his doom room at Harvard. The barrier to entry on the web is incredibly low in comparison to other industries. There are thousands of other people ready to eat your lunch, and it only takes one to bring everything toppling down. I think Google's previous attempts at monetization, like the swiss cheese Google box for your intranet, Google Apps, etc. were decently good ideas. Google now seems hell-bent on open-source, in the hope of drawing more eyeballs onto the one trick. As awesome as the self-driving cars are, I'd worry about trying to find some cash flow on something a bit closer to home.