I agree. Search is how Google builds its product, which is advertising. It's their competitive advantage. Because they have the best audience (targeted, biggest, etc.), they can use that to sell their advertising. By this measure, their product is superior to others, since they have put a lot of time into developing and refining their 'product' of advertising impressions, via the input of search traffic.

The company has an advantage, and it's using it to help sell something. Of course if they didn't have adwords, I'm sure Google could have found other ways to make money from their search.