> if you do pay for it, then you get proper support and everything

I wouldn't call it 'proper' support.

Last company I was at (2 years ago or so) got pretty awful support, and we paid for google apps (50 bucks a person per year, plus whatever the integrated postini cost [$5 a month per user or something?], for 100+ people). It was a minimum of 1 or 2 day turnaround for support, via email only for anything other than 'the entire site is down'. Not sure if that has changed or not since then.

Tell that to all those paying AdWords costumers that got kicked without explanation about two years ago. The webmaster forums where full about it.

I think that it would be more transparent if they made this perfectly clear to gmail users when they are signing up rather than relying on them inherently knowing this (or reading it buried somewhere in the TOS). I doubt that the majority of Gmail users (or just Google Account holders) realize this.

I'll say this, though. If a majority of your customers do not realize the full implications of what their terms are with you, then you are either:

1) Actively trying to prevent your customers from learning about the terms.

2) Relying on the general naivety of your customers.

3) Incompetent, in that you're not doing your job of letting your customers know what they are signing up for.

If more people were fully aware of the fact that their Gmail account could be randomly closed at any time, without notice, but still used the service because they accepted the risk, then it would be a different story.

Actually, Google makes money off the ads on their 'free' services. I think that qualifies everyone as a customer. The horror stories recounted here is a signal that Google needs to reconsider its reliance on the algorithmic approach.