Google by 1999 had no revenue mechanism and thus was not yet capitalism

Evidence

By 1999, despite the splendor of Google’s new world of searchable web pages, its growing computer science capabilities, and its glamorous venture backers, there was no reliable way to turn investors’ money into revenue. The behavioral value reinvestment cycle produced a very cool search function, but it was not yet capitalism. The balance of power made it financially risky and possibly counterproductive to charge users a fee for search services. Selling search results would also have set a dangerous precedent for the firm, assigning a price to indexed information that Google’s web crawler had already taken from others without payment. Without a device like Apple’s iPod or its digital songs, there were no margins, no surplus, nothing left over to sell and turn into revenue. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 219

Categorization

• XREF: The iPod/digital-songs contrast foreshadows why Apple could be capitalist where Google could not — relevant to foundational account of the digital economy. — connects to: Early Google outclassed rival search engines but had no revenue model. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 870; Capitalism’s fundamental drivers have not changed despite the information economy; Google’s advantage cycle lacked a market transaction to anchor reciprocity — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 215 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Early Google outclassed rival search engines but had no revenue model. #corroborates (0.92) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 870
• Google’s advantage cycle lacked a market transaction to anchor reciprocity #expands (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 215
• Google’s founding culture was a radical technical meritocracy contemptuous of mundane business #corroborates (0.80) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 881
• Google’s founders reluctantly accepted advertising only as an economic necessity #corroborates (0.78) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 884
• The early internet was built as a non-capitalist, non-market commons #corroborates (0.75) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 283
• Capitalism’s fundamental drivers have not changed despite the information economy #qualifies (0.72)
• For-profit tech firms cannot sustain gift economies despite their ideals #complicates (0.72) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 140