In that article, the Google employee explicitly said that they do not want to publish a lot of service based software to the outside world. Their business model is based on proprietary service based software, and AGPL is about free and open source in service based software.
GPL on the other hand is about free and open source in product based software, and this do not conflict with Google's service based business model. This allow them to use GPL licensed copyrighted work which they have not authored, and distribute that to gain an competitive advantage in markets that supports their service based revenue source.
If a company do not have an identical business model, copying google will only cost the company. Either they will be overly cautious and the competition will produce cheaper and better way to produce revenue, or they will be overly receptive to legal actions. To make the car analogy, trying to drive exactly like someone else is going to make you crash into something. You need to make a analysis where your car is, and make decision based on the road and the traffic in relation to you.
Examples where AGPL makes little impact on a company revenues and commonly uses a webmail product: Internal use in a company, an ISP, or a dns/hosting provider.
GPL on the other hand is about free and open source in product based software, and this do not conflict with Google's service based business model. This allow them to use GPL licensed copyrighted work which they have not authored, and distribute that to gain an competitive advantage in markets that supports their service based revenue source.
If a company do not have an identical business model, copying google will only cost the company. Either they will be overly cautious and the competition will produce cheaper and better way to produce revenue, or they will be overly receptive to legal actions. To make the car analogy, trying to drive exactly like someone else is going to make you crash into something. You need to make a analysis where your car is, and make decision based on the road and the traffic in relation to you.
Examples where AGPL makes little impact on a company revenues and commonly uses a webmail product: Internal use in a company, an ISP, or a dns/hosting provider.