> I think it's fair enough that Google might start charging for the service The other upside is that it opens up room for competition. Take something like Goog

> I think it's fair enough that Google might start charging for the service The other upside is that it opens up room for competition. Take something like Google Analytics, a terrible product that is ubiquitous primarily because of the name and that its free. The cost of running the service isn't free and no other competitor could reasonably get enough benefits from the data to justify the cost. By giving the service away for free (at a loss?), Google crushes competitors. Besides I would much rather pay a small price for a product and understand their business model than to let them make money off my data through opaque means.