> Photos existed and was available to the public before it was “released” in 2015.
Google has had several previous photos apps! The actually useful one is the most recent.
> Even then, 10 years is certainly not recent for a company of Google’s age.
So you swear you aren't demanding proof that services released in the past five years are successes, but you're complaining that pretty much anything older is too old.
Dude, I am engaging with what you said. Almost no product is wildly successful in less than 10 years by Google's standards, because Google measures users in billions.
If you still wanna ignore Photos, then talk about Gemini, Cloud, and Waymo. The Pixel phones are also doing pretty well, considering how dominant Apple has been.
My point here is that you're ignoring numbers that would be INSANE for any startup because the product is from Google. It really seems to me like you're looking for reasons to discredit the company instead of the truth, which is that non-ad revenue is 25% of the total and growing.
That's pretty significant and in absolute terms makes Google a giant even without search.