Here is where I have been watching Google morph into the 90s era Microsoft by behavior. Google plus, anyone?
Google got where they are today based on one and only one thing: Advertising revenue. Because everyone used their search (monopoly) they could build the most profitable advertising network the human race has ever seen. They don't make a dime on anything else, at least from a total revenues perspective. I'll bet they still don't make more than 10% of their total revenue outside advertising, but I have no facts to back that up.
You could say that they did with search what Microsoft did with Windows - leverage their monopolistic dominance to dominate another product/service segment for massive profit. They then use that dominance to reciprocate to their initial offering, making a self-propelled machine.
Microsoft had Windows, and used that to dominate the desktop with Office. Unsurprisingly, later on they leveraged their dominance with Office to reinforce their Windows operating system. Internet Explorer was just another tool to force dominance in their chosen market segments.
Google has done the exact same with search, sometimes for profit (ads) and sometimes just to own a market (gmail) and use that to continue to reinforce their dominance over search. I mean, yeah you can use other search engines, but what ads are you buying for your new product launch or website? In the end it all rolls back to Google.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Google's Google+ are the same in this regard: They were both created and given away for free to kill off competition and take over a market segment, with the sole intent of using that dominance to channel more profits on their original offering (Windows and advertising, respectively).
Back to Microsoft, and why they are still being bashed... They spent more than FIFTEEN YEARS blatantly disregarding public opinion, ethical standards, you name it. They are the corporate reference for the term collateral damage as they destroyed hundreds of companies yearly without even knowing it most likely. You can't cause that kind of anger and pain to such a large percentage of people without expecting to pay for it for years to come. Fer cryin' out loud, even IBM is given a pass more nowadays - that's got to mean something now don't it?