Well with a proverbial lawnmower at the top of the org chart, how many sets of weed-whackers, pruning shears, leafblowers, and RoundUp dispensers are below it?!
I think the argument may be that it doesn't justify this - that the main benefit of the SaaS platform has been to provide 1500+ people with something to do - and that perhaps the SaaS platform doesn't really add enough value to justify its existence or the company's valuation.
I don't really have a point of view on this since I've only used the browser extension (though I don't have it installed at present, thankfully) so the SaaS part of the business might be amazingly useful or it might not: I'm just laying out what I infer the argument in this sub-thread to be.
If they can charge for it, why not? Search is an important part of mail for many users, so there is some cross-over in knowledge/experience that can be leveraged.
And assuming you mean Google, the question is based on a false premise. They were an advertising company years before gmail was introduced, and an ad-tech company being able to trawl your mail to find ways to advertise at you is a very different proposition to a search company releasing the same product.
