Sure... but that is hardly ready for the masses! :-)
steps in the right direction happen one step at a time.
Google makes money on GMail by reading your email and serving related ads. They will never support built-in encryption.
I have worried about this incentive too, but they've just yesterday released some software that moves in this direction (though characterizing it as a special case for people who need extra security). But in the past I feared that they would even periodically update Gmail in ways that would break compatibility with browser-based encryption; I think the fact that they're publishing their own end-to-end browser-based e-mail encryption software shows that they're at a minimum willing to accept it as a supported feature.
Well, good. I'd probably even pay a reasonable monthly fee for that to offset their lost ad revenue.
It all depends on how they can mine the data. Metadata is hugely valuable, and you can probably infer why people would potentially would want to encrypt based on who the parties are.
There is reason to support crypto in Gmail even if it reduces their effective data pool. Take the startnext search engine that piggy backs on Google but with stronger privacy. Google could block it but they take the gamble that such privacy becomes more of a hot topic over time. By letting start next continue they can use them to feel out the market without losing much in terms of effective page ranking through link tracking. Really so long as the majority continue without privacy they are fine
don't you mean they'll never support built-in encryption because storing your decryption keys on google's servers would totally defeat the purpose of encryption? Their new end-to-end extension is the only logical way to put encryption in gmail.
Having it built into Gmail is a non-starter, because you can't do it right as a webapp. You need to do it locally, either with a browser extension (see the link someone else replied to you with) or a non-webmail client.