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What's mind blowing is that despite all that, they're still at the mercy of Comcast, Verizon, and at&t.

That is a very US centric view of the world. Google operates far beyond Comcast Verizon and AT&T.

People in the US have a disproportionate amount of money so serving them ads provides Google disproportionate value.

Could they exist without the US market, Maybe, I don't know. But I can't imagine they want to go without it.