This is not a Google Project, it's an Alphabet 'Moonshot' designed to maybe shake things up, create a market, discover new solutions/opportunities/induce invest

This is not a Google Project, it's an Alphabet 'Moonshot' designed to maybe shake things up, create a market, discover new solutions/opportunities/induce investment with a very high risk profile and no obviously commercial outcome i.e. quasi NGO stuff that VC's won't touch. There's no way to compare Loon to a regular commercial venture. It's just stuff the founders want to do and that's fine.