The flipside of 1. is that people in Africa still need to get internet access, which is not free. So one way or another they are paying for email. You could make the same case for cellphones, yet competition and innovation is driving adoption around the world. I'm not convinced that an ad-supported model is "cheaper" for those people. Furthermore, it only works because their number is not high enough to incur a substantial cost. If it did, given that the purchasing power of those people is negligible, Google's fiduciary duty to its shareholders would be an incentive to degrade the service, make them pay, etc.
Comments
The flipside of 1. is that people in Africa still need to get internet access, which is not free. So one way or another they are paying for email. You could make the same case for cellphones, yet competition and innovation is driving adoption around the world. I'm not convinced that an ad-supported model is "cheaper" for those people. Furthermore, it only works because their number is not high enough to incur a substantial cost. If it did, given that the purchasing power of those people is negligible, Google's fiduciary duty to its shareholders would be an incentive to degrade the service, make them pay, etc.