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GSuite legacy users can now get a free personal account, includes Gmail

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Re: GSuite legacy users can now get a free personal account, includes Gmail

#61

Post by Alupis »

mikewave wrote: post #58
Alupis wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya, aliasing is certainly not a replacement - particularly for non-tech savvy family members. I've also been around long enough to know not to try running my own email server anymore... been there, done that (Zimbra & Exchange). While possible, it will consume more of your time than you want. It's just beyond me why the likes of Google and Microsoft have not come up with a Family plan for bringing your own domain nam…

I'm not suggesting running your own mail server. Hosts like Hostineer do that for you. Setting up forwarding takes three seconds in a web UI.

I understand, but forwarding in my experience is brittle and rife with it's own problems.

The point of paying an email service is to make me not have to worry about it anymore. Gmail is free, and Workspace is $6 per user, Fastmail is $5 per user, etc.

If I'm anywhere near $20 monthly, I'd rather pay it to someone to have proper email and no "hacks". I just think it's absurd there is no "family & personal" option for any of these services... particularly Google where they could hoover up everyone's inbox like they already do in Gmail, plus make a few bucks monthly for the privilege of allowing me to use my own domain name.

That's literally all everyone wants here... GMail + Custom Domain Name. Google One should have this an a paid option and support X number of other users you can invite (family members with their own Gmail accounts). Families don't need retention policies, GDPR accreditation, etc.

Re: GSuite legacy users can now get a free personal account, includes Gmail

#62

Post by Bud »

exikyut wrote: post #40
trombonechamp wrote: post #24

36 hours too late for me - I deleted my 14+ year old GSuite account yesterday morning. Oh well, Fastmail seems great so far.

That's definitely within a reasonable deletion windowpz but also maybe up against the edge of it - try yelling really loudly (tweet @AskWorkspace, ask contacts/friends, etc, basically move now ) and you very well might be able to get it back. (I see there's an email address at the bottom of the link in your bio FWIW, just in case someone might consider reaching out that way)

Google accounts can be restored for at least 30 days after deletion. Should be quite easy. No yelling necessary.

Re: GSuite legacy users can now get a free personal account, includes Gmail

#63

Post by qbasic_forever »

interestica wrote: post #44
qbasic_forever wrote: post #11

Just moved my legacy plan over to the 'new' personal use/free plan and it seems fine. Good grief how this wasn't the plan from the very start is just beyond me. I hope the complete trashing of trust and perception with the earliest and most tech connected users was worth it, Google.

What changed? Does it put an additional limit on users or are you still able to add as you were before (up to your existing limit)? Maybe this really was supposed to be some sort of "shock" to push a certain group over to google's paid services. Or maybe it was just a mismanaged mess.

I don't have any extra users, other than like a few oauth app keys for random integrations. I just use it for my personal gmail and custom domain, and (unfortunately) all of my Android purchase history over a decade plus of mobile phone usage. Everything seems to be working just as before.

Re: GSuite legacy users can now get a free personal account, includes Gmail

#64

Post by renewiltord »

Alupis wrote: post #45
filmgirlcw wrote: post #23

This is a relief. I might still move some of my personal domains off of GSuite, but the fact that I don't have to is honestly a real relief. And I wouldn't even mind paying. If you wanted to charge me just for email without any of the other stuff and not offer support, I'd pay $100 a year if you could give me unlimited (or even 25 or whatever the original number of email addresses was) separate inboxes. But when you…

This is great news for those folks that already were on the GSuite Legacy plan... but it's of zero help for folks looking to set something like this up now for personal reasons. I own my last name as a domain, and always thought it would be fun to use it for my primary email as firstname@lastname.com. Well... $6 a month for an individual "vanity" email address is already hard enough to justify once you realize Worksp…

I haven't had any trouble with Google Domains' built-in forwarding but I don't do anything complex.

Re: GSuite legacy users can now get a free personal account, includes Gmail

#66

Post by windexh8er »

Alupis wrote: post #45
filmgirlcw wrote: post #23

This is a relief. I might still move some of my personal domains off of GSuite, but the fact that I don't have to is honestly a real relief. And I wouldn't even mind paying. If you wanted to charge me just for email without any of the other stuff and not offer support, I'd pay $100 a year if you could give me unlimited (or even 25 or whatever the original number of email addresses was) separate inboxes. But when you…

This is great news for those folks that already were on the GSuite Legacy plan... but it's of zero help for folks looking to set something like this up now for personal reasons. I own my last name as a domain, and always thought it would be fun to use it for my primary email as firstname@lastname.com. Well... $6 a month for an individual "vanity" email address is already hard enough to justify once you realize Worksp…

I don't think you should conflate those two things. I've run GSuite for a number of vanity domains since they started offering it way back when and have always had my actual Google account tied to my OG Gmail ([name]@gmail.com). In this way I don't have to worry about dealing with a split-horizon type situation if I ever decide to pull those vanity domains down and move them elsewhere. That and I don't trust Google to not do something evil (intentional or otherwise). I don't want to be in a situation where I'm locked out of things I paid for or payment accounts AND be locked out of the vanity domain(s) email.

The other nice side effect is I only use my gmail.com address for Google account related things. I don't get personal email there anymore and that inbox is pristine which is impressive since I've had it since Gmail launched.

My GSuite account, on the other hand, is quite a dumpster fire from years of personal email, aliases, and adding in other domains from time to time. Part of me would just like to walk away from it but too many things are tied to a number of email addresses in those domains.

I really do prefer Fastmail at this point, but I don't want to move these particular domains given how much junk gets sent to those addresses.

But... I wouldn't suggest using a vanity address as a primary Google account. Managing the two is worth the overhead and risk avoidance.

Re: GSuite legacy users can now get a free personal account, includes Gmail

#67

Post by theogravity »

For those that selected the paid option like I did before this was available - I DM'd @AskWorkspace on twitter, and they pointed me to this link

https://support.google.com/a/answer/1047213

If you follow the instructions and go to the '?' > 'Contact Support', there is an option for switching back to the legacy edition.

Re: GSuite legacy users can now get a free personal account, includes Gmail

#68

Post by coffeefirst »

htrp wrote: post #5

I'd like to know what exactly was the decisioning around this as it seems like a case study in how not to do product management.

Given how long it took and their original apathy to the negative reaction, I’m guessing a large percentage of users were migrating away rather than paying to upgrade.

And now I’m curious what that number is.

Re: GSuite legacy users can now get a free personal account, includes Gmail

#69

Post by Macha »

interestica wrote: post #44
qbasic_forever wrote: post #11

Just moved my legacy plan over to the 'new' personal use/free plan and it seems fine. Good grief how this wasn't the plan from the very start is just beyond me. I hope the complete trashing of trust and perception with the earliest and most tech connected users was worth it, Google.

What changed? Does it put an additional limit on users or are you still able to add as you were before (up to your existing limit)? Maybe this really was supposed to be some sort of "shock" to push a certain group over to google's paid services. Or maybe it was just a mismanaged mess.

yeah, theory 1 was they thought they could get some money out of pushing users to Workspace and didn't get the conversion rate they hoped for.

Theory 2 is they really were developing a GSuite to Google Account migrator and it ended up being way too messy to be workable in the deadline they set themselves.

Re: GSuite legacy users can now get a free personal account, includes Gmail

#70

Post by Macha »

Nican wrote: post #7
htrp wrote: post #5

I'd like to know what exactly was the decisioning around this as it seems like a case study in how not to do product management.

Probably trying to get rid of people using their service like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/ufa4v4/google_...

I think they're pretty justified to block additional uploads for any over their stated (but poorly enforced) quota, and give a window for users to get back under quota then just delete it for the obvious bad actors.
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