Shipping labels, tickets etc. Printers suck, but I can rely on paper being suitable for its purpose. Can't say that about most alternatives (mostly phone apps).
That joke is actually pretty old. In fact the link you posted says that it's not his joke. I don't really know where it came from, but it's certainly not from that guy.
Google's main business is ads, not Search, but even then Google still owns YouTube, Gmail and other things that are used by people every single day. On top of that they haven't been particularity neutral as far as politics are concerned and have even changed search for political reasons (fighting "fake news"). So yes, Google is definitely an influencer just like Facebook is.