well, duh. (Score 1)

Why on earth do you think Google wants to start picking dark fiber and implementing free wifi throughout major cities. It's not because they're not evil, it's because the internet providers of today are going to be the phone providers of tomorrow. I wrote a couple of posts about it on my site back when Google introduced Gtalk: http://www.yesterdaywasdramatic.com/articles/2005/ 08/29/more-crazy-thoughts-on-google Basically, I think google is going to offer some form of advertising(location based?) in order to offer free phone service. I think pay phone carriers will still exist for those who don't want adverts tied to their phone calls. I've never used ebay, but I think unless they utilize Skype with a heavily user centered design focus, Google stands a good chance to step into this arena and win it over. I'm pretty sure the reason Gtalk is so basic is that Google didn't want to confuse end users with it's primary focus(simple voice and text chat). My money's on Google to win this one.