Some of my friends have difficulty with their computers. I suspect one cause may be confusion about various terms. When I think of older people using computers, I imagine just a few goals: email, browsing, calculation. I often urge friends to explore the power of a Gmail logon and password. There are a billion "active users" of Gmail. Given that there are 7.5 billion people altogether, that figure says that about 13% of the world population uses Google stuff.
But that is not the point. The point is that when a user signs into a Gmail account, they are already signed in on that computer to many valuable services, all of which are free. Ok, nothing is totally free. Just signing in uses up a small part of one's remaining time alive. Quite a few of my friends are wary of anything about Google since they have heard that Google saves all sorts of information about every use of every one of their services. I retort that I find that Google doesn't track me enough and that I want more attention paid to my every breath. My friends are not amused.
My point is that a single logon/username and password are sufficient to use all Google services. I don't always know what to call all the things that Google can provide: Products? Services? Apps? I point friends to the Google Launcher in the upper right corner of the Gmail Inbox, on a computer, not a smartphone or tablet. There is a big difference between using a phone and a computer. If you don't have a computer, I highly recommend getting one. You can get very serviceable ones for the same price as many smartphones.
So, what can you get with Google? The main thing, as far as I am concerned is that you can use just about any device anywhere. Google uses web pages and connections to the world wide web are everywhere. It doesn't use software that you have to load onto your computer. So, my iPad, my Mac, my computer, my Chromebook all sign into Gmail the same way to the same thing. I can go to my friend's house and sign into my Gmail and other Google services on his devices. What other ones?
Google Drive - includes Docs (word processing, like Word,), Sheets (like Excel), Slides (like Powerpoint)
Google Calendar
Google Contacts
Google Search
Google Voice (for both voice calls and text messages)
Google Photos (photo storage)
Google Blog (this blog is written in Google Docs, stored on Google Drive and presented by Gmail and Google's Blogspot)
There are probably 20-40 products and services in all, some fairly specialized that might not be of broad interest. It is true that all computing services are competing with each other so the other computing giants may not make it all that easy to get into Google-land. Being aware of when you are using Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft can be helpful in understanding use and problems.
