I'm not sure if Google understand their own freemium model. Isn't the idea to let people use your cloud service at a very low cost, in hopes that they'll scale

I'm not sure if Google understand their own freemium model. Isn't the idea to let people use your cloud service at a very low cost, in hopes that they'll scale up and pay more? I feel like there's a huge gap between free and paying $400 a month. The day that the app becomes popular is the day the developer will have to shut it down or get hit with large server bills.