I think we probably need some kind of government regulation so that you can’t just close someone’s account without warning or access to support, or at the very least, you can’t prevent them from exporting their data and migrating to another service.
There is a hell of a margin between maximizing-profit-at-the-expense-of-customers and going under. It just happen that Google has now enough critical mass to really not give a fuck about their customers.
The users agree because they keep using gmail despite many good paid alternatives existing.
Only because the users haven't yet experienced a situation like this where the real value of "free" gets exposed.
Everyone loves to think "that can't happen to me" then act all surprised when the inevitable happens.
Grashopper and ant with a world full of grashoppers :p
I think we probably need some kind of government regulation so that you can’t just close someone’s account without warning or access to support, or at the very least, you can’t prevent them from exporting their data and migrating to another service.
... because they are? If you can't turn a profit then you go under, regardless of if you have good support or not.
There is a hell of a margin between maximizing-profit-at-the-expense-of-customers and going under. It just happen that Google has now enough critical mass to really not give a fuck about their customers.