It was a bizarre idea, in step with the tone-deaf nature of Google's leadership which seems to exhibit traits of megalomania. I like ambitious projects, I like people creating new things, but some of the words that come out people's mouths about creating places in the world to experiment without regulation, and that people's expectations of privacy are wrong, etc. It's just off-putting and some day when some other startup starts eating Google's lunch this barge will come across as the early signal that Google just had too much cash than was good for it.