> Youtube (yes, it was acquired. But you cannot deny Google's touch pushed Youtube to the top)

They bought it because their competing product failed so badly barely anyone remembers it existed. I'm not so sure Google actually helped much beyond increased bandwidth for higher-quality video.

Despite not knowing big G's influence on Youtube, I can still say with confidence that YT has been a consitent, huge time sink in the past decade since they were bought.

And don't underestimate how important it is to be capable, performant, and available. Outages and routinely slow performance is how you bleed customers. No doubt G had a hand in bolstering our little video site

Maps - idea is from DARPA, commercialized by G and other tech companies Chrome - I prefer Chromium YT - they planet scaled it, but the original idea was not theirs Flights - okay, this is kind of useful but I only use this a handful of times during the year