Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#351

Post by reubensutton » Fri, Dec 07, 2012, 11:53 AM UTC

indiecore wrote: post #66

alanctgardner2 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty pessimistic view. Customers are self-interested too: they want free content and services, but they also want absolute privacy, to ad-block everything, and generally cut off any possible revenue stream. This seems like it leads to a sort of local maxima where you produce the minimum quality required to drive users, with as little cost as possible. By cutting off ad-supported free users, Google is atte…

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.

Personally, I would imagine that it would take more time to set up and maintain than saving $50 would be worth to me.

Free is only really free if you don't value your time.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#352

Post by rythie » Fri, Dec 07, 2012, 12:01 PM UTC

indiecore wrote: post #66

alanctgardner2 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty pessimistic view. Customers are self-interested too: they want free content and services, but they also want absolute privacy, to ad-block everything, and generally cut off any possible revenue stream. This seems like it leads to a sort of local maxima where you produce the minimum quality required to drive users, with as little cost as possible. By cutting off ad-supported free users, Google is atte…

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've got several domains, I just forward them to my gmail account and set up the reply-to addresses if I want to be consistent - no need to get an Apps account for that.

We also run an email system at work, though it's a lot more work than other services - mostly due to spam / deliveriabilty - so even if you do pay $50/yr still seems a bargain. IMHO you need 100+ users to even think about justifying the time cost for running a mail server yourself.

Also, I get access to all the new Google stuff without having to wait for Google to make it 'business-ready'.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#353

Post by j_s » Fri, Dec 07, 2012, 12:25 PM UTC

Strom wrote: post #233

jtbarrett wrote: post #87

I have a free Google Apps account mostly so that I can have a custom domain for my small (free) App Engine site: https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/domain It's sad that now attaching a custom domain will cost a lot more than the domain itself.

You can still create a free Google Apps account, limited to a single user, through App Engine [1], Google just doesn't want to advertise this fact to everyone. [1] - https://groups.google.com/d/msg/google-appengine/pVZfdeky-ow...

Just wanted to say thanks so much for sharing this; kind of a big deal!

Now to figure out which email should be 'real' for Google App Engine - maybe the 1 user will be 'noreply'!

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#354

Post by fakeer » Fri, Dec 07, 2012, 12:27 PM UTC

tikhonj wrote: post #150

Wow, now I feel really lucky that I signed up for a free account just a couple of weeks ago. Then again, being forced to find my own email hosting would have made me less dependent on Google, which may have been a good thing...

Agree. I really think it's a bad idea to be tied to an ecosystem for all your needs.

I, for one, would sure want to Keep all my chat contacts to some other service than Google/Gmail, Calendar with an independent provider. Unfortunately, unlike Calendar and some other services services like SNS and Chat are dependent upon what and where your other friends are. I would love it if I can have my own chat setup and I can chat with my friends on GTalk and Facebook (no, I don't personally know anyone who uses Yahoo any more or used other services like AIM ever at all).

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#355

Post by alexenko » Fri, Dec 07, 2012, 12:37 PM UTC

4lun wrote: post #309

Found a workaround to still sign up for the standard plan, modify the following URL to include your domain: http://www.google.com/a/cpanel/standard/selectDomain?existin... Likely to be disabled very soon.

Instead of giving you a free plan, it gives you a 30 day trial :(

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#356

Post by bruceboughton » Fri, Dec 07, 2012, 12:39 PM UTC

pippy wrote: post #135

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.

This could be a good thing. If you approach your manager wanting to switch from dedicated to cloud email service, and you tell him it's for free, he's going to be suspicious. If there's a cost involved - no matter how small - it gives the product a degree liability for support.

You could always pay for Google Apps if you wanted to, as I suspect most >5 person business do.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#357

Post by antihero » Fri, Dec 07, 2012, 12:39 PM UTC

modeless wrote: post #231

antihero wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're going to need a hosting provider to host your website anyway; mail service is probably included. How is that awful?

I don't really want to have to set up Postfix on my Linode.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#358

Post by nicholassmith » Fri, Dec 07, 2012, 12:43 PM UTC

timv wrote: post #207

confluence wrote: post #41

So for hackers it's what? $50 a year for hosting + $10 a year of domain registration for vanity URLs - that's $5 a month. Don't see much of a problem here - I'm surprised they didn't do this sooner - I'm happy to pay for this service at that price - no problem.

Depends what you need to host. If you just want email & a blog, gandi.net will providing hosting for those as part of their domain registration (~$15 per year, depending on which TLD you want). They also include minimal web hosting with registration too, but last I looked their (free) offering was so bad it didn't really count as a feature. I imagine some other domain registrars have similar options.

I got a domain through gandi and decided to try my email there for a change, it's been pretty reliable and solid, the only time I needed support it was quick. I don't however do a lot of email so my experience might be much different to a power email user.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#359

Post by alanctgardner2 » Fri, Dec 07, 2012, 12:49 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #252

alanctgardner2 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, a real life story: I set up a free GMail account for my site, and directed all the contacts from the site there. I added it to my phone so I'd know when I got messages. I didn't really do much promotion, so I wasn't surprised I didn't see anything for a week. When I logged in from the web, I had gotten three emails from potential customers. Unfortunately, they'd been sitting for a week, and so it didn't make a ve…

I don't understand what point you're trying to get across here. Aren't you just as likely to forget to check a google apps mail as a regular gmail? Or are you describing a bug? Isn't that still equally likely with either option? Aren't both options crushed in effectiveness by redirecting to your main account, whatever that is?

> A company of one definitely needs the most reliable communications it can get

Is that clear enough for you? Self-hosting is a poor idea because screwing up once costs you real money, probably more than you'd spend on a year of hosting at a small business.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#360

Post by fakeer » Fri, Dec 07, 2012, 12:52 PM UTC

facorreia wrote: post #110

Steveism wrote: post #6

This is unfortunate indeed. The free Google Apps offering was a substantial value. What viable alternatives are there?

For small projects, I'll take a look at Namecheap email hosting, from $2.99/year: http://www.namecheap.com/email/email-hosting.aspx

I am already using this for my security email address (the one that I use to secure other security doors). It's good. I think I could use it more at a even at some more cost, maybe even for my other emails, iff they better their web interface.