Do you need a MATIC to use a Polygon?

Excuse me, I've been hearing a lot about Polygon and its potential in the crypto world. Could you clarify something for me? Is it necessary to have MATIC tokens in order to utilize the Polygon network? I'm a bit confused about the relationship between the two. Could you explain how MATIC fits into the Polygon ecosystem, and whether it's absolutely required for using Polygon's services or not? Thank you in advance for clearing this up for me.