Perhaps because they already have a cloud business they can bill internally to? Subscription services seem to bank on most users not exceeding $x worth of usage

Perhaps because they already have a cloud business they can bill internally to? Subscription services seem to bank on most users not exceeding $x worth of usage per month and just forgetting they are even subscribed. If Google invests in a streaming services to subsidize expansion of their cloud business, and collect more data along the way, it's probably a net profit in the long term.