I think this article is kind of wild. I would expect someone arguing for the break up of Google would be arguing for it on the basis of a good understanding of

I think this article is kind of wild. I would expect someone arguing for the break up of Google would be arguing for it on the basis of a good understanding of the company and the dynamics that would result from the break up. Instead a huge part of the argument is simply that the author doesn't know what makes Google profitable and think it would be great to split them up so we find out. Google Maps is a great example. The author has no idea if Maps is profitable. What happens if it isn't? You spin it off as its own company, it turns out Google is spending billions driving those camera cars around and has no revenue model (because you just split off Google's advertising business) and within a couple of years Maps can't afford to keep itself up to date, its an expensive unsustainable business (which is why no one else does it) and it either has to sell itself cheap and no one can buy it - because they all know what happened to Google and they don't want their business exploded by regulators. If Google Maps is a huge money spinner (seems unlikely but could happen) well great, you've just created a monopoly that no longer has any incentives for anything other than exploiting their position as a monopoly.