I wonder how soon it will be before they eliminate free domestic calling on Google Voice?
Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups
371–380 of 475 posts
Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups
#372Earlier 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 just wanted an email for my domain and that's not worth 50 bucks a year. How much do you make per hour? How many hours do you expect to spend per year maintaining your own email system? How much would you pay to stop one hacker, one time, from reading your private email? Are you going to bother to set up two-factor authentication, or just wing it? For a lot of people, $50 a year would make total sense.
This times a thousand. For $50 a year I can have Google's security, spam filtering, and 2 factor auth.
Totally understand someone running their own mail server due to privacy concerns, but that's a different argument to "not worth $50 a year".
Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups
#373I hope Google can offer a cheaper plan for those who needs only domain and email.
Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups
#374With this decision, I have now come to believe that Google is not the company that it used to be in the past. The user-friendly company with a quirky personality.
Somewhere in the mindless fighting with becoming the dominant social and mobile force on the planet, it has forgotten about the very users it once strived to please.
This has been more apparent since Larry took over Google as the CEO. His "more wood behind fewer arrows" has somewhere down the line taken away the humor with which Google has largely operated. 20% time? Google Labs? Hugely popular Google products scrapped into oblivion.
The only products that matter beyond search are - Android, Google+, YouTube and Google Apps which are fairly mature by now and are a serious threat to competitors.
The thing is they didn't need to do it because they aren't starving of computing resources for more important products and the marginal costs of adding free users is almost nil (although it exists).
I somehow feel betrayed by this decision. Google, so far, has resisted the temptation to shut down products that were important to it's users unlike other companies like Microsoft and Yahoo! I have been using Google Apps since they launched it a long ago. It feels like bait and switch.
This is completely right and there is nothing wrong with them shutting down a free service as a business but somehow it feels so non-Googly.
Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups
#375Earlier 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.
It's just as easy to imagine Google getting undercut by a big company. Yahoo, here's your opening.
I always thought of free Google Apps as the company's brilliant play to control the fabric of the business internet. Can you name anything in the digital realm more important to businesses and organizations of all sizes than long-form communication (email) and content and information-driven collaboration?
Sadly for new users and for Google itself, the company's actions reveal a failure to recognize Apps as anything more than a collection of inter-related services ready for more aggressive monetization. Management fails to see the strategic benefit and leverage afforded by controlling the online fabric of every new business that starts operating as a small team. It's the type of short-term and profit-driven thinking that afflicts so many companies as they reach the complacency of scale.
Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups
#376Earlier 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 used to run my own one-user email system. The hosting alone cost $240 a year. And I had to spend a lot of time configuring exim4 (and spamassassin and clam-av), figuring out which email indexer to use, setting up offlineimap, running cron jobs to archive mailing lists, coercing a friend to run a secondary MX for me, etc., etc. I didn't enjoy it all. And no matter what I did to reduce spam, about 10 messages a day a…
I'm sure it will be a lot cheaper on AWS.
Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups
#377This is unfortunate indeed. The free Google Apps offering was a substantial value. What viable alternatives are there?
Seems most of the people recommending alternatives are only thinking of email. I use gapps for my family, and we take a huge advantage of having a domain-specific calender and docs.
What is the advantage of using domain-specific calendar/docs over using them with your personal google account?
Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google Apps for Business has 24/7 phone support. Maybe you would know that if you actually used Google Apps for Business or read the blog post.
> Google Apps for Business has 24/7 phone support. Not for the free version.
Given that there were people who would try to use the free version for their business, and then kvetch (on HN and/or other major technology blogs) when their account was hijacked and they lost business critical access and couldn't recover quickly because they didn't have the 24/7 phone support, it might actually be better that the free version is getting sunset....
Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups
#379I 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 a…
I believe the paid business version of Google Apps has always had the option (by the domain administrator) to turn off advertising for Gmail on a site-wide basis.
Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
+1 for this. I've run my own mail server for 15 years, since I got my first permanent connection. I host on the end of it as I have a large distrust of "the cloud". It is cost effective for me as it has increased my merchantable skill portfolio. I've ended up designing some mail systems (50k+ users) for some large ISPs in the past thanks to my accumulated knowledge. Debian is probably the easiest to get off the groun…
I am failing to see what the big stink is about "giving up one's privacy" when using "the cloud." Yes, there are some shady providers that might put their hands in the cookie jar at their convenience. That sucks. Google isn't one of those providers, though. What advantage would they gain from reading people's mail at a whim? Regardless, one's privacy is already compromised the moment they sign up for Internet service…
Google is one of those providers:
http://searchengineland.com/google-fired-two-employees-for-b...
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/operation-aurora/
http://readwrite.com/2010/09/27/googles_second_transparency_...
Google read your email and use it to throw targeted ads at you.
There is a fine line between profiling, tracking and analysing communications and utilising that data for something nefarious. The only deciding factor on how far it goes is cash.