No, it doesn't. It has one master: advertisers. Advertisers are the customer. Users are the product. Search results are the bait.
This is self-evidently true. Your customer is the one who pays for your services. Google's users don't pay, never have, never will, because search is not a product you can sell.
User attention, on the other hand, is a very valuable commodity for which people will pay handsomely.
The currencies are different but Google absolutely needs to satisfice two disparate customers.
Users are Google customers in the same way that (say) fish are a fisherman's customer. Fisherman engage in barter transaction with fish, offering them bait (food, or at least the prospect of food) in exchange for allowing themselves to be sold as a product to a third party who gives the fisherman actual money. That is what makes the third party the fisherman's customer and not the fish. Likewise, Google engages in barter transactions with users, offering them bait (useful information, or at least the prospect of useful information) in exchange for allowing their attention to be sold to a third party for actual money. The money is what makes the advertiser Google's actual customer and not the user.
> No, it doesn't. It has one master: advertisers. Advertisers are the customer. Users are the product. Search results are the bait.
I wouldn't put it that strictly. Users are still masters in that they can continue to use Google or not.