I certainly pay google a fee for my Gmail account, as do most people I know who use Gmail, so don't be so certain of the "If you use gmail you don't pay for it."
I'm pretty sure that everyone who uses Google as the email manager for their domain now have to pay google - that includes business, universities, individuals, etc...
The only people who get "free" gmail, are people with an @gmail.com account, which in these days seems to be an awfully bad approach - makes it hard to switch your email to another provider if you run into issues with the old one.
