On: Google's PageRank patent has expired

[kinkrtyavimoodh]

Have you seen Google's growth chart? It was meteoric. All these things you mention came in or after 2007. Google was already a behemoth by the early 2000s and that was because it was just way better than anything else.

[baccheion → kinkrtyavimoodh]

All the mass of marketing (ie, going mainstream) happened at around their IPO. 2003'ish.

Also, their growth after 2004 was linear not meteoric/exponentially and they are now in decline: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%....

[bborud → baccheion]

Do you know the parable of the blind men and the elephant?

If you are going to use a metric you have to show that it is relevant. It also helps if one agrees on what we are measuring.