Why can't they sell products and be
like an Apple, Oracle, Microsoft.
Econ 101 on HN again.Aside from what Google's doing. You're assuming that the value someone personally derives from using something is the value other people derive from pushing it to them.
I.e. you have ads on Google, some of which cost >$10. To the companies paying for them that makes sense, because they might be selling a product that costs $500-1000, with say 10% conversion.
But a user is never going to be persuaded to pay >$10 simply to click a link.
So yes, there are some things Google does for free that they could be selling, but a) they may not be easy to sell directly b) even if people bought them it wouldn't make up the difference they make from ads, because the value isn't on the consumer side, it's on the advertiser's side.