In an alternate timeline Google Gadgets survived and iGoogle evolved into ARCS.

But seriously, go read this and think about how the world might be different if we could split up the data hosting (into Google Cloud) and the Application Serving. What kind of world would we have then?

Once you've digested that read the User Sovereignty doc

http://go/user-sovereignty

I think efforts like this are key if we want Google to grow even larger than it's current size without being regulated to death.

#googplus