Well I'm certainly critical of startups that have no plan to create a viable business and are just hoping to get bought out, but startups are not all like that.

Well I'm certainly critical of startups that have no plan to create a viable business and are just hoping to get bought out, but startups are not all like that. Plenty are trying to create viable businesses. The difference between Google and the serious startups is that they have a record of launching products with no plan or intention to make money from them: they are loss leaders to bring more people into the Google walled garden. A lot of people didn't realise that in the past. People used these product knowing they weren't a money earner for Google, but people assumed Google was tying to be a good citizen and provide useful services for people. Using up the piles of money sloshing around at Google. People treat(ed) things like reader or gmail as basic infrastructure. Google enjoyed being treated like the benevolent dictator of the internet. We paid our 'taxes' in the form of ads and in return got lots of services and infrastructure for free. I heard countless people making the argument that Google's interests were intrinsically aligned with those of internet users: there was no way that giving more money and power to Google could ever go wrong. It was totally wrong for people to think that way: corporations do not operate in the public interest. I think it's easy to understand the emotional backlash: people don't like to be made fools of. What they thought was benevolence turned out to be a PR exercise, or worse, a landgrab.