It’s easy to paint customers as frightful moaners, but that’s a surefire way to lose customers, or at least alienate them. Google’s Reader debacle comes to mind.

In particular, the short notice period (3 months + 2 months grace) for something people have been using for a decade is jarring.

And these were the earliest customers of Google Apps for your Domain, and created a lot of positive word of mouth publicity for Google.

Ultimately, it’s not about right and wrong, it’s about how you make customers feel, and Google institutionally doesn’t know how to make ordinary customers feel great when things go wrong. It’s an institutional issue. (Exception: if you’ve got enterprise support for GCP. Then you get a lot of engagement.)

By the same token, people have been using free Gmail accounts for a while now. What do you think the perception will be if Google asked them to pony up $60 a year with 5 months’ notice?

For me, this raises the obvious question. How long a notice period is long enough? Six months? Eight? A year? Five years? A decade?

I think we can all agree that a decade would be an excessive and unreasonable expectation.

> By the same token, people have been using free Gmail accounts for a while now. What do you think the perception will be if Google asked them to pony up $60 a year with 5 months’ notice?

Probably about the same as if Google asked them to pony up $60 a year with a year's notice. Which is to say incredibly hostile because people have come to view free Gmail accounts as a basic public service for which no payment will ever be required under any circumstances.

People need to assess the situation, evaluate existing solutions (including paying for the service), what needs to be done, etc. They're not doing it as their job, so do not necessarily know the current market offers.

Then they need to allocate time and resources to do the transition. Time, when the transition is the least disruptive, and the resources are usually availability if an in-house specialist. I know plenty of companies where upgrading a software take more than a year, with all their budgets, IT departments and external contractors. A typical G Suite user won't have all that expertise readily available.

That means that the transition will often require an IT enthusiast working in their free time. It's reasonable to assume that they will have at least one vacation per year to do that. So if the transition is ≥ 12 month, everyone and their mom should be able to do it.

If the transition is 3-5 months, I can see how it can be a problem even for commercial users with a dedicated task force.

My point: it doesn't matter how long they give us to switch - most people won't do it until they are absolutely forced.

This reminds me of Microsoft back in the day. Windows was (is?) crap, unreliable, and without the kindness of technical friends and relatives willing to work on someone's Windows issues for free, Microsoft may not have ever made it past DOS. I got sick of working on everyone's Windows problems so got rid of all my Windows machines and just told people "sorry, I don't have any Windows machines anymore and can't help you". And it was the truth - after about a year I really didn't know how to help them anymore! It's great!

Maybe it's time for technical people to stop working for free for Microsoft and Google. If their stuff is crap, let them sort it out with their wonderful customer service that you now have to pay for.

It's not 60 bucks a year for most of us, it's whatever the domain costs plus $6 per account times the number of accounts. In my case it's 720 dollars a year, which is more than it is worth.

Looking at it another way, Google's most recent net profit is $18.94 billion per quarter.

I have no idea but if there are 1 million G Suite Legacy accounts out there at $60 per year. That would increase their revenue $60 million per year.

So just assume all that revenue is net profit which would make their quarterly net profit go from $18.94 billion to $18.955 billion for the low cost of pissing off 1 million people.

I, myself, am a 'victim' of this, with two personal accounts grandfathered in from the good ol' days. I'm moving both of them to Protonmail.

which is called entitlement. And i'm seeing more and more of this sense of entitlement as more and more people (esp. young people) being exposed to the internet - and this seeps into their other lives offline.

Also I suspect a lot of Google’s early adopters will be switching away due to this change. These are the tech-savvy evangelists who helped build Google Apps to what it is, and can plausibly do it for another service too.

Since I can remember email services across Microsoft, Yahoo and Google have been free. It is completely okay for us to expect that to continue as it has been around for so long. Now if you want perhaps more premium features, or access to the entire suite of product then yes it is expected you would need to pay.

Let's not act like providing users with free email hasn't been beneficial for these companies either.

But Hotmail and Yahoo for example have been around since the mid 90's. That's 27 years of free email.

Might want to research that one. Sonos “technology” here is the idea that multiple speakers can be adjusted by one knob… but the knob happens to be software.

https://techstory.in/google-found-to-have-violated-sonos-pat...

> 9195258: System and method for synchronizing operations among a multiplicity of digital data processing devices that are separately clocked

I am struggling to see merit. It reads like "devices can play music in sync if you send them the timing info" which is not novel. Maybe I'm missing something, but I am doubtful. The patent system is full of garbage and patents are written to be obtuse on purpose.

> 10209953: Playback device

The abstract is literally identical to the previous patent word for word. I don't think this should at all be considered a separate patent. Partly because the claims seem like garbage, but mostly because it's just more of the same from the first. This is written to be almost impossible to parse, but the first claim in English is "two devices on a LAN can connect and coordinate playback based on one device's clock". It's NTP. Sorry, it's "NTP, plus audio".

> 8588949: Method and apparatus for adjusting volume levels in a multi-zone system

One knob, multiple speakers. Old idea. Every smart home app has exactly this same concept for lights and speaker systems have done this for decades without the software. It is not novel.

> 9219959: Multi-channel pairing in a media system

Jesus Christ. "You can use multiple speakers to play multiple audio channels." It is not novel that your speakers can be "smart".

> 10439896: Playback device connection

Ugh. "You can use your phone to add a device."

None of this stuff is novel. The last one seems the most novel, but also not valid because it essentially describes part of the WPS protocol, but using an app instead of a router button.

I don't see that it's "entitlement" to think these are garbage. The software industry giants have fought a long time for the patent office to acknowledge software patents that are not actually novel. I honestly hope this crap starts to hurt them more and maybe they'll start pushing for reform. But probably not because the primary effect is to harm smaller competitors.

As such, they have no justifiable reason not to expect user reactions reeking of entitlement.

>Furthermore, organizations that sign up during the beta period will not ever have to pay for users accepted during that period (provided Google continues to offer the service).

http://googlepress.blogspot.com/2006/08/google-launches-host...

Thanks Google, finally I have the motivation to end my relationship with you

Google should not set the wrong expectation right from the start. At that point in time, the impression I got is Google App is just a typical Gmail account with the additional feature of using custom domain with some administrative features.

And with what Google is doing today to Google Apps (now packaged as G Suite legacy free), there is nothing stopping Google from doing the same thing to the typical Gmail accounts as well.

Imagine you have been using your [email protected] for everything and is deeply integrated in you life. One fine day, Google bite back and also say you have to start paying to use [email protected], how does it sound? We don't own the gmail.com domain and we will be held ransom to stay or lose the email address if we don't want to pay.

So are we also wrong to have the expectation of entitlement that the normal Gmail account will be forever free to us (i.e. provided Google is still around)?

Or you can call it bait and switch by the company.

If you STOP a service (or turn it to a PAID service) on short notice - and a service that is essential to people - then people will have to rush to find a solution... and will feel been extorted.

If you DEGRADATE the service more and more, people will slowly leave or upgrade to PAID, but they will have the choice.

Moreover, email is really a sensitive matter: it's a main point of contact for... well... email... but altogether for online service (IRS, website account, etc.) and in a way our digital life. So you can't just leave such a short notice. However, you have to let your FREE customer know that they have a choice to make quickly... so DEGRADATION is a good tradeoff I think

Most of us however we perfectly fine with the limited on the accounts... in reality if they just gave me the exact same level of service as they do the free gmail but with a custom domain I would be fine / happy. That is after all what the original service I signed up for was in the beginning.

I have no interest in Google Workspace, I want Gmail, Drive, and Identity. That is it. Maybe Photos... All of which they offer free to everyone still today just not with a custom domain

1. cancelling my Legacy Free Edition

2. moving my domain to another provider (e.g. Proton Mail, Fastmail, etc.)

3. creating a personal Gmail account using one of the email address that will be formerly part of my Legacy Free Edition

I have some hesitance that the Google account creation flow won't allow me to do this.

It doesn't mean anyone suggested it should be any of those lengths.

Now, they are asking for more money (It was $6/mo; it's now $12/mo) for less features that apply to us (can't use YouTube Premium or Google Homes on a family plan if you have G-suite, can't port a Voice number from a consumer account into a G-Suite account, amongst other limitations) because Google decided to convert this offering into their business collaboration portfolio instead of leaving it as its own thing.

Worse, if you want to move all of your email, photos, Google Maps activity, etc. to a free account, well, too bad! You can't! You can use takeout.google.com to download everything, but most of that data can't be imported into consumer.

Basically, we were duped, and now our data is trapped.

Personally, I would be happy if Google offered a way to convert legacy accounts into Google Consumer accounts like flipping a switch. Shit, I'd even pay a few bucks/month still for exactly this experience without all of the Google Workspace-y stuff that I never use. (I never use Google Chat, Google Meet, or any of their business-only offerings _because I never wanted those things in the first place!_)

> What do you think the perception will be if Google asked them to pony up $60 a year [for Gmail] with 5 months’ notice?

Realistically, I and a lot of other people would think "remind me in 4 months and ~25 days so I can put my credit card in." But it's also not a valid comparison because in Gmail you're the product via advertising. Not the case for Apps.

Luckily I just use it for domain forwarding, so it won't be a huge issue, but I do have some accounts tied to the gmail auth, and untangling that mess will be hard.

How many people have not even been told yet?

I'd be happy to pay them 120 bucks a year for what I'm getting now, 10 email accounts, of which, one sees actual use.

The only reason I'm still using it is because account bound purchases are attached to it, otherwise it would have been long gone. As long as there is no way of transferring these anywhere google will not get a single cent.

Years later and I still don't use Google (except for search and sometimes maps) because of Reader.

"You're not a customer" isn't BS, it's a fact. Time to realise: You (and I) are the product.

?

Email to [email protected] is still working as far as I know, and I send emails to a couple of people who still use mac.com addresses all the time ([email protected] also works).

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201771

I'd be happy to convert accounts to personal Gmail accounts and do mail forwarding. I'd be happy to move to a family plan for $100/year.

After being a user for a decade, you'd think Google would provide me a reasonable way to pay them for their services. But I can't swing $500/year for email.

I use Protonmail for myself and around 5 others, with close to 10 mailboxes. I highly recommend it. Not sure what's available from them re. importing older mailboxes - I've never done it - but everything I've used jas been fantastic.

Protonmail's cheap too. Less than $50 annually for all that I use, including multi-user VPN.

I've heard good things about Fastmail too, of you're looking for an alternative.

I've moved small businesses on gsuite free, multiple personal gmails over using their tool, and I have not had an issue in the dozen or so corps I moved

It's basically blackmail: pay the new monthly fee which you didn't agree to when you signed up, or lose access to everything you've already paid for.

I dont need any of the other workspace related frippery, I don't want it, it makes some of the features of the account harder to use - it was better before it had the notion of an organization even.

I just want to be able to create some gmail accounts under my domain, I'm not a business, I'm a guy who handed out email accounts to his friends, now I gotta figure out if any of them are using them still.

Killing the free tier now is a huge PITA, and especially aggravating without them implementing any way to carry over licenses to a regular google account which is still free.

Over the last week I've gone through all of the steps of registering a new domain, setting it up with Google Workspace, sharing some docs back and forth, deleting the entire organization, and then signing up for a new google account using the same email address (so no gmail). After each step I waited 24 hours.

I was able to access Docs and share back and forth using this reused address on the new account. You'll obviously lose all of the existing share connections, but it's not like the address itself is burned.

It’s typical in SaaS to grandfather in old accounts. You take the hit because your later client base is so much bigger, and why not keep your early adopters sweet. Google has calculated the value of those early adopters and decided it’s worth it. Wait until customers have too much to lose and then yank the fishing line. “You call them early adopters? We call them freeloaders.”

This is why I use an iPhone. I pay the money and I get to keep (mostly) my data. Google, you give away your data and pay nothing. Now you give data and you pay? Ick. If Apple starts giving away my data I’d be equally pissed.

People always complain about bait and switch tactics.

Give them a way to revert to a free personal account without losing access to their files, data, and any digital goods they may have purchased and let them decide if they want to covert to a paid account or not.

Does Google Takeout allow you to download de-DRMed media you've paid for through Google properties? Provide functional APKs of paid Android apps that will continue working without an active and functional Google account?

- Google Maps search history, custom maps, stars

- Google Photos albums, comments, activity

- Google Search activity

- YouTube stuff, of any kind (unless you use something like Soundiiz, but even then it's nothing like Google Play Music was where your files were YOUR FILES, and somethings aren't available on the streaming platforms)

But the biggest issue for me right now is the club I run, which has nearly 30 accounts on our Google Workspace domain. The only reason I did this, way back when, was because of the promise of "free forever."

While we have about 30 people on Google Workspace, we have another 70 or so "non-staff" members. Our entire group of about 100 fundraises for our website costs every year, which are considerable for an all-volunteer group ($2000-ish) because we have a pretty resource intensive MediaWiki installation, and other resources.

We've spent 10 years integrating with Google. All of our other resources use Google login. Our group has dozens of Google Groups used for sub-committees. We use Google Drive/Docs excessively. And so on.

But there's no way we can afford to DOUBLE our costs just for Google Workspace. And we can't get a non-profit discount because we're not a charitable organization – we're just a club of writers.

So for us, this is a huge nuisance because not only is Google breaking the agreement it made with us ("FREE FOREVER"), but I don't have the time or resources to manage this kind of transition to something else. And... what, even? If we had known from the beginning they'd break their promise of being free forever, I just wouldn't have built so much infrastructure on top of this system.

A lot of people are talking about entitlement and saying how people shouldn't complain when free stuff goes away. I think those people are missing the point. Google is an incredibly profitable company and it would cost them almost nothing to continue to offer this service. By choosing not to, they piss people off (rightly or wrongly) and won't make much of anything in return. We can speculate about how they got to a place where maintaining this service was painful enough to justify doing that, but from the outside it seems like a poor decision that is hostile to users and antithetical to how they used to do things. That plays into the narrative that this ain't your mamma's google any more and something cool about the 2000s spirit has passed away.

[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/import-gmail-to-o...

If they had instead marketed it as 'free for a decade and then you'll pay some arbitrary amount' what do you think the adoption would have been?

Google: "Come enjoy this limited version of our service, it's absolutely free!"

Consumer: "Excellent. I was going to go with this other service, but since this one is free I will take advantage of it!"

Years later...

Google: "Ok, now that you have many years of data in our system, it's time for you to start paying!"

Consumer: "Wait... what?"

Yes, it's been free. But Google offered it for free and now people have years of data in it. Data which could have been in another service had Google not offered this one for free to begin with. It's kind of like a bait and switch. Get people in, get them to sink most of their life into it, and then start charging.

Also, it's not like a lot of people were out looking for this kind of solution. The fact that it was free brought in a LOT of people who otherwise wouldn't have done it, and are now tied down to it.

That's why a lot of people are mad, and to me it is justifiable.

Imagine nothing changes, but now your wife demands you pay her cost of cup of coffee every time you have sex. Does that eff you up a little bit or do you barely notice?

Edit: I'm in Brazil BTW.