Correction: If it is not resulting in you transferring more data from yourself or others to Google to profit off of, it is not going to stick around long. Google doesn't seem interested in running paid businesses besides advertising no matter how much you are paying them.
i'm curious why google (and other large companies like that) might not try to sell those sorts of tech internal-startups to other industry players. possibly a lot of hassle, no doubt, but... tens of thousands of man hours and research just get shelved because "toothbrush test" (then... why were some of these obviously-not-toothbrush ideas being pursued in the first place) and no one else gets to benefit?
Charging money or showing ads is not a sufficient condition - a better statement is, if it's not profitable, it's not going to stick around long (with exceptions for products that are strategically important to profitable corporations).
