In the case of individuals and small businesses who have been using this free tier of service for a long time, it's very easy to just say "come on it's only $6,

In the case of individuals and small businesses who have been using this free tier of service for a long time, it's very easy to just say "come on it's only $6, and think about how long it's been free." Fair enough. But, my understanding is that many consulting shops (e.g. web designers etc) set their clients up to have their email hosted through this service, thinking it's all their clients would ever need and, well, it's free. They could have hundreds of clients who now need to start paying. If the clients are unsophisticated they may not even know they have the service, to them it's just "Gmail but somehow it's my domain, I dunno, some web guy set it up for me years ago, I think." This could lead to real headaches for the consulting shops and the users. Heck, think about how many of these were probably set up by consultants who were basically fly-by-night (moonlighting, etc) and can't even be contacted anymore by the clients? I'm not saying that users should feel entitled to free services forever. I am saying that the expectation is not outlandish, considering how many free-for-personal-and-very-small-business use SaaS things are out there, especially with email and chat platforms.