Originally Posted by
scubadu
I agree with most of what you've said. Unfortunately, I fear for the future of ITA because Google's track record with tools people value, but don't pay for, is... well... not great.
I'm as much of a cynic as anyone else about big tech companies. But in this instance, I think one risks falling into a similar trap in thinking along these lines. Google isn't providing a service to us, the people who value the use of the tool for free. Google is selling a product to customers who (I imagine) pay squillions for it. So long as the customers continue to pay large amounts of money for the product, and we are prepared to continue to donate our time to Google to help Google to improve the product, Google has an incentive to keep allowing us access to it in the way that we have become used to.