e wait until they were "killed" so they could come in and buy their business for pennies on the dollar? We're fast approaching a dystopian Snow Crash world of all-powerful corporat

Hahaha I literally laughed out loud at this. Google making products. Have you seen how they make products? They have killed more physical products than they have delivered. They discontinue them more frequently than an average person throws out a napkin. Their first gen products are usually overpriced trash (Google Glass? Nexus Q?). If Google could pump out electronics with the speed and quality of someone like Anker or Amazon they’d be buying half of Europe for cash right now. I don’t pretend to know why they can’t but empirical evidence shows that it takes them several years and at least a product generation to put out something useful. For them to put out a fitness tracker or a smart watch in a few months that would be remotely competitive with the Apple Watch is just not in the cards.