Whether the service is free or not has nothing to do with the amount of support they provide. If they charged $0.01 per year, would that then change any argument in any way? What about $0.01 for life?
Google is monetizing the interaction in some way, either directly or indirectly (possibly even as a loss leader), otherwise they would not offer it. That is all that matters.
Once we can all get past the "free" concept, it turns into a rather mundane comparisons of price vs features, but price may not entirely consist of currency.
The point of my above statement was that one might argue that it's not reasonable to for example call Linus Torvalds and demand customer service for free.
Google is monetizing the interaction in some way, either directly or indirectly (possibly even as a loss leader), otherwise they would not offer it. That is all that matters.
Once we can all get past the "free" concept, it turns into a rather mundane comparisons of price vs features, but price may not entirely consist of currency.