As I understand it, Google is not well optimized for putting out new mass market customer-facing services and keeping them going. Their entire organizational hierarchy actually runs counter to this very idea, and you know, people at Google are just like people everywhere else. That is to say, they are just people.

The fact that every now and then they have a success speaks better of the specific team driving it than it does of Google as a whole organization. That is usually the case with any corporation though.

So basically, you can have all the resources in the world, but if you’re not organized well, then you will not accomplish your goals more efficiently than your smaller competitors. The fact that your competitors are comparatively resource starved probably helps them optimize better than you can, because what is just a side project to you is their entire existence to them.