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I don't disagree. They're still a spy company, if we're being cynically reductive.

Is there a way to ELI5 Google's primary business model without it coming across as spying on people?

Very few have the same problem among FAANG and others.

Ads, Google is the world's largest ad company.

Internally they can do anything EXCEPT fuck with the ad revenue. If you get more ways to get data off users and ad views, good.