Alphabet's huge capex may not earn cash returns if its Search toll, Cloud contracts and model lead slip. H1 operating cash flow rose to $84.9B but capex doubled to $80.6B, leaving $4.3B, with $195-205B of 2026 capex guided. Agents like Meta's Muse can shop and check out without a Google query; Anthropic's reported $200B Cloud commitment comes from a lab that also uses AWS and Nvidia chips; Gemini 4 hasn't shipped. Cloud grew 82%, so this is a framework, not a demand-is-dead short. x.com x.com x.com
