Google starting to charge more?

I keep hearing from multiple sources that Google will be starting to charge more and cut free services as costs rise and more and more people are moving to alternatives. Now, of course, I have been saying that free accounts will be going and as more and more companies reduce services it finally looks like this prediction is starting to come true. I know Google have recently cut the allowances that Google Earth free accounts enjoy and yes, I realise this is just one thing but they have changed quite a lot recently. Now there are limits and you need to use a Google Cloud project!

So what seems to be happening – well Youtube is expected to lose a lot of functionality unless you pay, Gmail the same. Some products will undoubtedly lose free accounts all together. Know I know this has all been said before and over many years but this time the momentum is gaining ground to say that the changes are coming. Privacy is much easier to manage and enforce if an account is paid for, for example, and in many regions throughout the world there are lots of moves, both legislative and financial, to start accounts moving from ad supported to paid for and/or subscriptions. I can see that 2025 will be a far different experience for a lot of people than so far in the world of tech and internet. If Google go down this route as well then the amount of free accounts will substantially decline with companies like Meta following suite pretty quickly and very soon the age of the free accounts will literally be over.