Video challenged the cinemas (until they learnt to adapt and provide a better overall experience), CDs challenged the music industry (which was so wedded to its singles-release-followed-by-an-album model), DVDs challenged TV and the internet challenges just about everybody, all the time. If change was a constant which became apparent only in retrospect, before, in the age of the web change is an imperative. Those who fail to understand their customers, the changing landscape and the way to take their product or service forward, will surely end up on the growing dust heap of dinosaur carcasses. 

Because we are used to thinking that Google is so big that everything which it does is bound to be supported by an unbelievably big number which will be its budget and the sort of marketing brains which dwarf the wattage output of super novas except that you’d be right only on the latter. Like any large company Google adopts the approach that each project needs to work on a shoestring budget and fight hard for its existence backed, mostly, by the glamour of the Google brand and the brilliance of its people. 

When it comes to the web publishers and newspapers are dinosaurs about to join the Dodo. There are good reasons for this which are as lamentable as they are logical within the confines of their particular industry.