Yeah. Please see my other comment. It's not about putting ads on the home screen like we all assumed in the 90s to be the logical conclusion of where we were headed ("one day your car will be free, but it'll be covered with Marlboro inside and out!"), but mobile device usage is increasing and cannibalizing at blinding rates, and the more they can control every aspect of the experience, the better they'll be able to stop the bleeding (which will happen, however good their takeover is), and position themselves for the future. The last thing Google wanted was to watch was Apple and Microsoft slug it out in the mobile OS business, add a dominant share of mobile use to an already dominant share of desktop use, watch mobile become the new desktop (and they touted those stats internally for years before they announced them publicly), and almost certainly wind up the next Yahoo: a company all but a handful of others would be happy to be, but no longer the dominant player, or even a terribly influential one, at that.

(And what county is that, if you don't mind my asking? Sounds like paradise, right about now!)