When I look at Link's ATM locator I still see more free cash machines than paid ones. You can also get cash out from most banks for free at the post office (Barclays threatened to stop doing it but later backpedaled) and you can also get "cashback" when paying with your debit card in many food shops.the rapid disappearance of free cash machines
I think I've paid an ATM fee in the UK about once in my entire lifetime, and that was because I was in an extreme hurry.
Some things do strike me as odd though, at the convenience store round the corner from my parents house there is a fee-charging ATM, but said store is also a post office, and they also do (or at least did last time I asked) debit card cashback. So the fee-charging ATM is essentially an idiot-tax.