This is a watershed moment for Google. Providing free email service was a way for them to get lots of data. The goal of course being to learn to massively scale

This is a watershed moment for Google. Providing free email service was a way for them to get lots of data. The goal of course being to learn to massively scale computer networks, how to maintain them, back them up etc. Your data was the equivalent of 'cannon fodder' in their secret goal of controlling the world. Clearly, email has now become a burden. They can get orders of magnitude more data from the internet of things whose number now exceeds the human population on this planet. And all these things are talking to each other, sending data, etc. Our lives are inextricably dependent on these things - like automobiles, telephones, electricity, factories, etc- When google learns to optimize these networks, supply chains, distribution channels, etc. they will control the substrate on which we base our lives. People's behaviors, choices, values , etc will be manipulated without them even knowing it. Witness the first and most superficial attempt at this game - facebooks' 'fake news' campaign. Eventually, the AI that will inform these choices will be so complex that humans will not even know how to recognize it, let alone stop it.