Comment by titzer

6 hours ago

No, only the 85% or so of it that's accreted since about 2008. Prior to that it actually made money by offering useful search results without infringing on user privacy. That core business model could still work to power a company about 1/8th the size of current Google. Current Google cannot survive on that model. Something went really wrong when it put growthism above all else.

> Something went really wrong

What went wrong was Google (the old 'do no evil' Google) bought the ad network DoubleClick. The acquired DoubleClick side then took over old Google from the inside out such that what we have today is Doubleclick calling itself "google", no more 'do no evil' old Google anywhere, and all the evil that exists on the advertising side infesting everything they do.