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Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

googleenterprise.blogspot.com

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Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#161

Post by shuzchen »

brown wrote: post #96
indiecore wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

by cutting off free users they just opened themselves to getting undercut by a smaller company that can offer fewer, cheaper, targeted options. I just wanted an email for my domain and that's not worth 50 bucks a year. I'll just set up my own email system at this point, call it a learning experience and never be exposed to the rest of whatever was in Google Apps.

I did that for a couple years. I highly recommend it as a learning experience, but I concluded that $50/year is absolutely 100% worth it.

That's $50/year for each user. Easy to stomach if it's only yourself, but add even a partner (not to mention a small team with a bootstrapped product) and it starts to make less sense financially.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#162

Post by philip1209 »

zmmmmm wrote: post #24

I really hate it when companies try to sugar coat a decision that is all downside for their customers. It may be really hard to do, but Google should just come out and say it: there is no upside for this to anyone except Google . It is not about giving you a better experience or making things more straightforward . It is all about Google deciding to maximize their profits at the expense of their users. That's fine, i…

Attempting to "optimize profits" in this manner annoys me mainly because advertising makes up 96% of Google's revenue. 4% accounts for every other source of income they have. If advertising is their strength, decreasing access to business users for advertising in the name of revenue from such a basic service seems like a bad decision.

That being said, if this is this is a precursor to responding to complaints about access to Google customer service by giving all Google Apps business customers access to better support, it may make some sense.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#164

Post by antihero »

capo wrote: post #129
jlmendezbonini wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are reading it wrong. There's no longer a free Google Apps version. What they refer as free in the post is the classic Google (@gmail.com) account. EDIT: phrasing

Yeah that's what I mean by the "free tier".

So if you want a Gmail address on your domain, even if you're a non-profit, I guess you have to go fuck yourself now :(. This SUCKS.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#166

Post by Margh »

chrisblackwell wrote: post #152
Margh wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly puts me off. $5/10 per user per year, wouldn't think twice about it (even though the money would be paid grudgingly). With the number of users we have that would end up being around $50/year; but $500/year to host some email and store spreadsheets? No thanks.

Let's imagine your company has 100 employees in it. So at $5/user a month, you are paying $500 a month. Now, the median salary for thos 100 employees is most likely at least $3000, so you are paying them collectively $300,000 a month. That represents 0.016% of their salary. Do you get where I'm going with this?

And when the median salary of your employees is $0/month (prototyping or a family domain or something) and your options are: a. Nothing b. $50/(employee/family member)

What then? Of course no company paying $300,000/month is going to care about $50/user/year.

Edit: Clarification

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#167

Post by yanw »

zmmmmm wrote: post #24

I really hate it when companies try to sugar coat a decision that is all downside for their customers. It may be really hard to do, but Google should just come out and say it: there is no upside for this to anyone except Google . It is not about giving you a better experience or making things more straightforward . It is all about Google deciding to maximize their profits at the expense of their users. That's fine, i…

Judging from this and previous threads people here are either distrusting of free services or aren't willing to pay for the goods (not everyone obviously) which is quite the paradox.

I'll chalk this one down to the startup nature of this community, seeing as some are probably involved with competing products or are developing some, but the matter of fact is that this announcement is perfectly reasonable: “vanilla” gmail accounts are free, Apps accounts are not.

Those who already have free Apps will keep them at the same price, there doesn't seem to be any swindling involved, and look! phone support, imagine that.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#168

Post by agwa »

modeless wrote: post #151
revelation wrote: post #2

Not sure how to feel about this. The core feature of the free Google Apps was that you could use GMail with your own domain without having to run a dedicated mail server yourself.

You can still use GMail with any domain: http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answe... This method is actually far more convenient than setting up Google Apps. You can both send and receive mail at the other domain, and you get a unified inbox (which Google Apps never provided).

No, that method requires that the other domain have its own mail server to accept and store the mail until gmail comes and fetches it with POP. Who will host that other server?

Google Apps for domains lets you point your domain's MX record directly at Google, and Google accepts the mail for you.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#169

Post by antihero »

modeless wrote: post #151
revelation wrote: post #2

Not sure how to feel about this. The core feature of the free Google Apps was that you could use GMail with your own domain without having to run a dedicated mail server yourself.

You can still use GMail with any domain: http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answe... This method is actually far more convenient than setting up Google Apps. You can both send and receive mail at the other domain, and you get a unified inbox (which Google Apps never provided).

Yet this doesn't appear to be any sort of mail-hosting thing, so you'd still have to sort out mail with an entirely different provider to receive e-mails on your domain. This is pretty awful.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#170

Post by antihero »

therealarmen wrote: post #5

Please note this change has no impact on our existing customers, including those using the free version. I give it six months before they start strong-arming free users into paid accounts.

I use it for a small activist group that I help run. There's just no way we'd have the budget for it.
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