I should have noted that they hadn't been on the internet in the 90's when Microsoft did the same with Hotmail, and others.
Ultimately, nothing is free.
Still,I can't help but wonder if ads in emails didn't generate enough cash so now it's tiem to charge.
If you didn't login every 90 days your free account would disappear. This was after Hotmail itself was built up to hundreds of millions of users with only free users.
At this time they were the main web email provider as well as Yahoo.
Guess Google has hit saturation point and are now trying to leveridge some services as a package instead of just gaining income from ad's.
Still at least getting some notice, albiet timed rather interestingly right before the holiday season and also after the canges to there app accounts.
So in effect this realy will only effect the less-techy minded people out there with non android phones.
Sounds like that's what's happening here too.
Introducing new services that are not available to the free-riders seems to me to be a much more friendly thing to do than to take away features that were previously on offer. The latter strategy will make people wary.
Companies, on the other hand, typically exist to make money. This is nothing new... However, unlike traditional companies, Google is more sensitive to its users needs. After all: "Let the consumers decide whether we are going in the right direction" Unfortunately, the majority of consumers are lazy; not caring and simply consuming. A company needs only to change a service ever so slightly in order to not affect a large majority. Small change - After change - After change until a company has fully 'maxed' the potential profit.
My guess would be somewhere in the vicinity of $5-$10/month.. for all ads on all web pages you look at everywhere.
Though I could be off by an order of magnitude, for some people.
Charging much more would mean targeting a completely different market segment with a fraction of the size of Google's current search and email users.
It's a strategy to consider, given the "desirability" of GMail users vs Yahoo users[1], but behavior of most people is highly likely to change when going from free to not free.
1. http://blog.opower.com/2012/06/the-triumph-of-gmail-how-yaho...
Only if you use the GMail web UI or official Google clients that can show you ads. Once they get people off native clients and onto either Android or at least official clients on other platforms they can start ramping up their mobile advertising to make-up for the loss of web advertising. They've been sly about it so far but they have to pull the trigger eventually. Like you said nothing is free. They may have waited a bit too long to pull the trigger. Now a lot of Google service users are under the false impression they can get a free ride. They may have started using Google services exactly because they looked like a no-trade off free ride. Those days are coming to an end now. It's going to be a very interesting transitional period over the next 12-18 months.