Google is ultimately trying to turn the web into their own app store so that anyone who wants to create, view, monetize, or share content has to do it using their proprietary services.
Yes of course. Google sees themselves as being in the utility business, like the digital equivalent of an electric or water company. The whole company is basically a series of strategically placed loosely connected platforms that work in the background like infrastructure. Right now the Internet is still very young so they are essentially just building their moyo[1], expect the pieces to become more closely interconnected over the next ten years.
That's been the aim of virtually every large Technology presence for the past decade or more.
Microsoft spent a decade chasing the dream of taking a "vig" on every electronic transaction. At one time, Visa's CEO listed among its three largest competitive threats MasterCard, AmEx, and Microsoft (I guess it doesn't pay to Discover...).
Amazon and eBay are doing well on the same basis. Apple has its iTunes store. Google sits on the nexus with search, advertising, and a huge social / demographics database. Being able to siphon a few cents off of every online transaction, plus advertising, would be a tremendous market.
And having saturated the search and advertising markets, it's not as if Google has much growth through its traditional core functions.
Google is ultimately trying to turn the web into their own app store so that anyone who wants to create, view, monetize, or share content has to do it using their proprietary services.