Their suite of apps directly competes with Google's and their webmail does feel very familiar compared to Gmail. But that's where similarities end. So far, being non-US based of the biggest factor as well as offering a site of trustworthy apps that function well.
Unless that changes (with privacy), I'm OK with it being bigger and popular. It's also A LOT easier to convince friends and family to switch to something "branded" vs indie Dev or get them to install something from Github. It gives the general population a sense of trust, smaller/lesser known apps can do.