It's interesting how Microsoft is starting to feel like the lesser evil compared to Google. I wonder how many good services/companies have been killed by Google offering an inferior service for free, only to abandon the service later on.
Judging by your username I'd say that you've already thought about this and perhaps have a somewhat biased and possibly less than reasonable opinion on the subject...
From a guy with your moniker, I'm sure to get unbiased and fair perspectives about Google.
Google dropped the "don't be evil" motto in 2009 and the Google "+" search operator in 2011... I think that is when Google stopped improving (on average) and even started to degrade services for business purposes (when viewed from a user's perspective). Since the user is the product, I guess it can make sense... but I don't like it.