Google doesn't make money from "collecting people's data", they show you ads.
If they're collecting data it doesn't even work; I make no effort to hide from them and none of their ads are targeted to me. Meta, though, they're good at it.
For Google Ads, personal data collection alone is not as useful for making money like ordinary people imagine. And you don't really want to "sell" the data: why would you help your potential competitor to bootstrap their ads business for a discounted price? The real deal is the network and ecosystem itself, which is extremely hard to replicate. As a GP said, Meta is doing much better on behavioral targeting since they have a much better idea for each person's history though. And I work in the ads business, so you don't probably have to ask the same question again.
No data, no targeted ads. Simple as that. Whether some other dystopian company does it "better", does not matter. I asked them how they think Google's ad business works and you have not provided an answer to that question either, even though you state, that you work "the ads business". (At Google?)
No offense, but you stating, that you work in the ads business rather makes me doubt, that you are talking from an unbiased point of view and makes me suspect, that there are motives at play here.
Actually the statement, that Google doesn't make money from personal data is kind of ridiculous. If they didn't make any money from that in one way or another, they why would they waste so many resources on collecting that data in the first place? It is really obvious, that they do make money with that data. Their other products are failing left and right. It has become a meme, when Google kills yet another of their products.
You don't need targeting when you own a search engine; if someone searches for "buy PS5" you show them ads for a PS5.
> It is really obvious, that they do make money with that data.
Google doesn't have to care about making further money because they have an infinite money machine from their monopoly on ad auctions. It's better to think of them as just doing whatever Larry Page thinks would be cool.
They mostly don't collect it though, like they don't do targeted ads in Gmail.
If they're collecting data it doesn't even work; I make no effort to hide from them and none of their ads are targeted to me. Meta, though, they're good at it.