Originally Posted by
clip
They are providing a service (email) which incurs costs to provide (storage space, hosting costs, antispam, security enhancements, software upgrades - among other things).
Over time these costs will have increased/will continue to increase due to - ever increasing storage sizes, software going out of date, needing to be patched, eventually needing to be completely rebuilt/replaced when the software meets end of life. Completely understandable to charge for it and surprising it has taken so many many years to do so