Even if you personally don't use GMail, a considerable amount of personal emails have at least one participant who uses it. Every social person who uses email has some of their communication read by Google. People who like hyperbole will phrase that as all of their communication is data mined and therefore controlled.
moreover - as someone who doesn't use gmail - I'm subject to their capricious and unknowable policies about incoming mail. they get to decide if I can actually speak to half the internet.
