Well, it's not about need. It's about a story that goes like this:

    ICANN: Hey, has anyone noticed that our wallets aren't
           very heavy?
    Google: We have a bucketload of money just laying around
           that will fill your wallets, and wouldn't mind
           our own gTLD. It'd be cute.
    ICANN: You had us at 'bucketload of money'

We needed more gTLDs anyway. So what if a few mega-companies get their own versions?