I'm running through my head thinking of all the things in my domain account. Email archive/filters/rules, contacts, calendar, docs (mine and things shared with me), Drive, photos, Play purchases, Google One subscription for extra space, Android, Google Cloud.
Then I have stuff on a plain @gmail account that didn't work with my domain account - family library, links. That was already annoying. Don't want to mess that up either.
Should I merge the accounts or create a new @gmail account to hold everything?
My estimate is that it will take days of migration/backup/testing to move over, then extra time to ironing out issues that crop up. Hopefully I don't lose any content or purchases...
Even with email forwarding I believe I'll lose cosmetic things like using your domain as the owner of calendar invites, photo sharing, etc.
This is for 1 email account/domain only. I think I'll probably pay up.
So for my situation, I can just use IMAP to move the mail to a new provider. Easy peasy.
The entire Google account will be suspended unless there's payment. I'd have to audit everything my Google accounts are used for, find alternatives, train users on the N new services, and deal with all the migrations. Which frankly is impractical. Some stuff is not easily migrate-able (YouTube subs/history, Android purchases, ...), and unless I don't need a Google account again ever, I'll probably end up migrating to an @gmail one at least partially.
But at least I keep the domain?? Which I'd then be paying a mail provider about the same amount for. Plus probably more for any other paid services.
To say nothing of convincing and migrating my family/other users.
If I could only keep the Google account going with my own mail/services that'd be something. They say I "may" retain access to YouTube and Photos, for now. And the account will be in a 'suspended' state that requires payment to get out of.
It's not exactly a surprise, and I know "that's what I get" for using Google services. But it's still scummy.