I just had a long conversation with my sister, a restaurant server, yesterday.
I remarked that the value the restaurant gets from her didn't go down because she did a good job. Why should they get to pay her less when she over performs?
Ugh, I just went through the same thing last week. Let's just say that checking if secure boot had been turned back on was NOT one of the first 500 things that came to mind during troubleshooting.
There is no VAT in America. Just sales tax at a state and local level. VAT is a very specific method of taxation that isn't the same as a general sales tax. I'm still not sure how you are relating that to Google either though. Google sells very little compared to someplace like Amazon.
Don't pretend they have no control. They could band together and refuse to play by the restaurant's rules. Things would change pretty quickly.