Google Analytics is free because it is a complementary good to advertising spend. If the director of marketing tell the CEO "this $1000 campaign on Google drove

Google Analytics is free because it is a complementary good to advertising spend. If the director of marketing tell the CEO "this $1000 campaign on Google drove $50,000 of sales at a 10% profit margin", the CEO is going to okay a lot more advertising spend. This winds up in Google's pockets. The same logic applies to why Amazon develops open-source software that makes developing cloud applications easier.