Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying • Hacker News Board

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#321

Post by deburo » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 8:51 PM UTC

austhrow743 wrote: post #296

Apreche wrote: post #139

I knew something like this would probably come, but it doesn't make it any better. Complete BS. 16 years ago me and my friends signed up for "GMail for your domain". That's it. We wanted to use GMail, which was by far the best email available at the time, and have email addresses at our own domain instead of @gmail.com. That's it. Since that time several of us have been using our GFYD/GSuite/Workspaces accounts as ou…

Are they holding your domain hostage somehow?

The rant is probably around convenience. How hard is it to offer one-click migration of your data from one account to the other? I guess pretty hard, since they don't support it.

My example is Google Play Music, which they migrated to Youtube Music. They probably offered to merge accounts at the time, I don't remember, but I ended up with two Youtube accounts with different playlists that I couldn't merge or transfer data easily. I had to do an annoying dance to recreate my playlists from one account in the other.

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#322

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 8:52 PM UTC

jlv2 wrote: post #198

I've had this for 10+ years. I use it for a family domain. Everyone in the family has a user in the legacy G-suite, but it's really only set up as an email forwarder to their personal gmail account. No one logs in under it. I'm not going to pay $6/user/mo just to do that, and I don't think any of them (all adults at this point) would either. If I could get up an email forwarding without needing a paying user, I'd pro…

[deleted]

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#323

Post by kk6mrp » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 8:52 PM UTC

I'm young enough that I missed the free tier however I later eventually came across MXRoute [0] which is still offering the lifetime promo. Looks like it increased to $175 since I bought it. I haven't been disappointed and it is faster than Gmail from my experience. I host Cypht [1] for the front-end instead of using their webmail.

[0] https://mxroute.com/ [1] https://cypht.org/

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#324

Post by Alupis » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 8:54 PM UTC

q1w2 wrote: post #179

yaacov wrote: post #81

> As of December 6, 2012, Google stopped offering the free edition to new customers. 10 years of a free product is not bad

99% of the users of the free product just wanted to have their group/family/etc to use gmail with a custom domain. That product is still free at other providers. We'll just be moving.

What providers offer 10 years of email (guessing many GB in size), plus allow using your own domain name for free?

All the one's I'm seeing are paid options, some of which get very expensive if you have more than just one or two users.

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#325

Post by filmgirlcw » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 8:55 PM UTC

I can’t be too mad because I’ve had 15 or 16 years of free service, but I’m now annoyed I have to investigate where I want to migrate, since I literally don’t use any of the other Google services.

And now I get to figure out what happens when a Google account is no longer tied to a paid Google account for stuff like calendar and document access.

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#326

Post by austhrow743 » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 8:57 PM UTC

network2592 wrote: post #320

austhrow743 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they holding your domain hostage somehow?

They make it incredibly difficult to manage domains. DNS is managed via a third party like enom. Enom itself just had an outage recently that affected all G Suite users [0]. Transferring your domain to another registrar is opaque to say the least. Arguably, these things, in combination, could be considered a dark pattern. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29963713

My email provider doesn’t have control of my domain. In my registrars settings I just put my email providers server addresses where they told me to and I’m under the impression that if my email provider ever jerked me around I could just go in there and change those server addresses to someone else’s with no input needed from my email provider.

Did google do something different with these accounts? I didn’t even think they offered a registrar service when they stopped letting you register free custom domain gmails accounts.

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#327

Post by donmcronald » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 8:59 PM UTC

SergeAx wrote: post #275

I don't know if it was inevitable, but I do not share a sentiment here. Supporting domain mail with web interface and services around is costs resources, and Google have no obligation spending it forever. It was a nice gift and I feel grateful. I also feel it is a perfect time to try out new CloudFlare's domain email forwarding service, while it is free.

It costs more for a single user on Google Workspace or MS365 than it used to cost for shared hosting that came with 50-Unlimited email accounts. Small businesses that only need email are getting royally screwed by big tech. Everything is more complex, has no additional features, and is a solid 10x what it should actually cost once you have 10+ users on email.

And before anyone chimes in about needing to deal with backups, etc. on shared hosting, go check out all the backup products for MS365 and Google Workspace.

And before anyone chimes in about deliverability issues, those are caused by Microsoft, Google, etc., not solved by them.

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#328

Post by blibble » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 9:01 PM UTC

patja wrote: post #204

rjewell wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went through this last year. It was relatively smooth, but I did do a factory reset and spent a couple hours on the project just to be sure. I have been plagued by account problems for years, though, having signed up for services like YouTube with a personal email prior to creating the same email address in Google Workspace. I recommend avoiding it, and just using a free Gmail account for basic usage of Google docs…

Did you successfully go from having yourname@yourdomain.com as the primary Google account on your phone, with the account setup under Google Workspace, to an end state where you had a "new" Google account for the exact same email address with no connection to Google Workspace. I understand it's a given to lose the purchases. I'm semi-dreading the prospect of being presented with an error message preventing the creati…

I went through exactly this 6 months ago and am now signed in on Android with exactly the same email address as I had on my paid workspace account

though I advise leaving it for a week or so after deleting it as it was pretty glitchy to begin with

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#329

Post by notyourwork » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 9:02 PM UTC

Apreche wrote: post #139

I knew something like this would probably come, but it doesn't make it any better. Complete BS. 16 years ago me and my friends signed up for "GMail for your domain". That's it. We wanted to use GMail, which was by far the best email available at the time, and have email addresses at our own domain instead of @gmail.com. That's it. Since that time several of us have been using our GFYD/GSuite/Workspaces accounts as ou…

> And now we're being forced to pay for something that everyone else gets for free.

What we get for free is a @gmail.com address and the associated services. We DON'T get yourcustomer@domain.com or anything like that on top of Google's infrastructure.

I can appreciate your frustration but these threads always come full circle to if you aren't paying for something you are the product and have much less control over your fate. Google's willingness to kill things is why I avoid coupling things like that to them.

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#330

Post by tyingq » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 9:03 PM UTC

cecida wrote: post #267

tyingq wrote: post #132

Microsoft is probably happy about it. O365 for Family is $99/year total (not per-person), and allows up to 6 people, and you can use your own domain.

Some caveats. You won't be able to use your primary main_user@formerlyhostedbygoodle.com address as your login to the Office365 suite. You'll have to manage each inbox separately (I had 4 email accounts in GSuite legacy).

>You won't be able to use your primary main_user@formerlyhostedbygoodle.com address as your login to the Office365 suite.

That's interesting...why not?

Edit: Found in their FAQ:

"We strongly recommend against setting your personalized email address as your primary alias for signing in. Doing this can create problems with signing in or even sending and receiving email." https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/get-a-personalize...

So it's not clear if you can't, or you can, but it's not recommended.