Web Service Business Questions

All,

While SOAP vs REST discussion is interesting, I have to ask a more
fundamental (at least to me) question that must be answered: can Google
make money with its SOAP or REST-based API?  I am not sure if such
question is in-topic or not, but I think many of us want the answer to
the question.

More specifically,

1. Who would pay to use Google web services and why?

What value does it offer to Fortune 1000 companies?  What kind of
value-added services can one build on top of Google?  Why would
consumers pay for such services?  Is it possible to delegate
advertising?

2. What is the cost of operation?

With no payment and billing infrastructure in place, dynamic
relationships between web service businesses are difficult to setup
automatically.  Forging static relationships take significant time and
resources to setup.

3. How will accountability and liability be distributed?

If I rely on a value-added Google service and something goes wrong, who
is responsible?  When something goes wrong, how does one find out what
went wrong, where it went wrong, and who is responsible for fixing it or
paying for damages?  Without good answers to these questions, web
services is a highway of Dominos just waiting to fall.

Until we have convincing answers to these questions, arguments over SOAP
and REST are no more interesting than sports bar arguments.

Best,

Don Park