Yeah, that was my thought as well.

First, I explained it with "the author means a hardware product", but then he immediately said that Apps where almost a product that people pay for. So, uh, I guess the ad network just doesn't count, since it's "only ads", or something.

It seems to work fantastically well though, both practically and of course economically for Google, and of course it must be seen as being a product at his point.

So, I guess at the end it's just a rant. :)

And despite their supply problems, the Nexus 4/7 are top quality products.

Not to mention Nexus phones (sold out for a while and highly regarded), Chromebooks and Apps for your Domain (enterprise gmail, etc) which is extremely popular

First rule of internet tech blagging: desktop/consumer space is the only thing that matters. See: Linux everywhere on servers and embedded devices, internet still obsessing about whether "grandma" can use it to play solitaire. See also: PHP coders complaining that Java is too slow, because one time they tried to start up Eclipse.

Google has never made anything that this guy and his friends, have paid for, therefore failure.

That just begs the question of whether marketers are actually people.

And android, but people pay for it indirectly.