Google is a profit seeking business entity just like many others and hence will do whatever they can to advance the interest of the company and its shareholders. It would be nice if companies had moral responsibility and societal accountability however that’s seldom the case in USA. The role of taking care of the people belongs to the government. Companies have choices but no obligation to do what’s best for you.

If you are using a free e-mail service ran buy one the worlds largest and most powerful marketing companies as the identity / auth provider for your critical services and applications you should seriously reconsider your choice.

To paraphrase your comment: I'm honestly not sure where we went so wrong as a society so as to reach a point that we get mad when a service we do not pay for, ran by a selfish company decides to shutdown our access.