There's no perfect business model. The alternative they had in mind was running it out of academia, with the growth of the web that was not financially viable.

There's no perfect business model. The alternative they had in mind was running it out of academia, with the growth of the web that was not financially viable. As another comment in this thread points out, when google started it was only available from Standford and Berkely. It could have been another JSTOR. I'm glad it's available to everyone, and that's thanks to ads.