Google's business model for the last decade has been to pitch people who want advertising against each other, bidding ever higher for top placements. It's up t

Google's business model for the last decade has been to pitch people who want advertising against each other, bidding ever higher for top placements. It's up to you to decide whether that's a zero-sum game (personally I don't think it is by a strict definition), but Google is certainly responsible for more and more companies allocating an ever growing part of their budget to advertising. It isn't immediately obvious whether that results in more business. Some of these companies may be spending more and more just to keep the same amount of sales due to bid prices increasing. This effect is somewhat masked in a vibrant and growing economy, so it's not that easy to distill.