> > The fact that you give something away at no charge (but actually make money or even if you don't make money) is not a reason you can then walk away and not have any responsibility at all for anything and everything. (Or shouldn't be).

> I'm very sympathetic to OP's situation, I have also lost an account with years of irreplaceable emails to Google's finicky algorithms. But this right here is a slippery slope I would never wish for. Offering a free product should absolutely not entitle any random user to any kind of support. I should be able to release a product (whether open-source, free, or paid) and decide for myself and my business the level of support I want to provide, without an obligation to respond to everyone, or maintain it forever.

I argue there is a big difference between giving something away as open source and giving something away and indirectly making money through e.g. advertising. For example if there are two game companies one makes a game that you have to pay for to play and the other makes money through in game ads, should they both not give the same support for their games? The users pay for them just in different ways.