Google ending G Suite's (now Google Workspace) Domain Legacy Free Edition

[Output]

While people have been unable to sign up new domains to the free option since 2012, those who do have and use it will have to upgrade to a paid tier if they want to keep using it.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022...-your-account/

[Saracen999]

Irritating, I'm sure, for thse using it .... which doesn't include me.

I'm kinda surprised though. Surprised that it took this long. The ol' bait 'n' switch bandwagon from 'hook 'em for free' to paid subscription services rolls on apace.

Maybe I'm overly cynical (yeah, stop the sniggering out there in the cheap seats ) but, not much is genuinely free. Again and again we've seen 'free' services used to get users committed and making it tricky, or painful, to switch, then in comes the pay-up clobbering. Cynicism again, maybe, but other than genuinely open source products/services. I expect to see more of this, not less. It's one reason I switched my 'core' OS to Linux and s/ware to Libre, etc back in the Win8 days, and some other stuff (like photo editing) to other paid-but-long-term apps when Adobe went subscription. And I still think, sooner or later, MS will drop support for non-365 type users entirely, for both Office and Windows. Then, we'll hear the screeching, but (IMHO) the clock is ticking louder and louder.

There is, of course, always the not-silly argument that as it costs to provide 'free' services, there'll be a gotcha somewhere and at least this is a visible gotcha. If only I trusted companies like Google not to have even more insidious but less obvious gotchas at the same time. But I straight up don't.

[DanceswithUnix]

So that was a free basic 10 user setup? I can't see it as a bait and switch tbh, given this seems aimed at companies. After some years most companies will have either:

- Grown beyond 10 people
- Outgrown the basic tier, wanting eg the extra features
- Failed

So I wonder if maintaining the free tier just became a pain in the butt for their developers. Another mode, another thing to test, for no income. So probably just a handful of home users impacted, who can probably afford £4.60 per month.

Having said that, I didn't even know this was a thing. Well advertised Google, no wonder most companies I know are using the Microsoft equivalent

[Output]

So that was a free basic 10 user setup? I can't see it as a bait and switch tbh, given this seems aimed at companies. After some years most companies will have either:

- Grown beyond 10 people
- Outgrown the basic tier, wanting eg the extra features
- Failed/

People who signed up early enough had a limit of 50 rather than 10.

I'd imagine that there were plenty of home users using it though, that didn't really need anything specifically related to the higher levels. Mostly being able to use their domains for email, being separate from their websites (if they are even set up as websites), but with the GMail spam filtering and interface so many will be used to.

So I wonder if maintaining the free tier just became a pain in the butt for their developers. Another mode, another thing to test, for no income. So probably just a handful of home users impacted, who can probably afford £4.60 per month.

Per user rather than per domain, so depending upon the amount of email addresses that may be set up on the domain (regardless of the reason), it could soon mount up to more than a home user is willing to spend for it.

I'd imagine it was decided that anyone who hadn't upgraded at this point clearly weren't going to (and thus Google would continue to get no revenue from them) unless they were given an ultimatum.

If anyone truly feels that they need it, they'll likely pay - especially with it apparently being half price for the first year. Those who don't upgrade will obviously mean less for Google to have to continue servicing.

Having said that, I didn't even know this was a thing. Well advertised Google, no wonder most companies I know are using the Microsoft equivalent

I'm surprised, I thought it was something that pretty much everyone would have heard about by now.

After all, they've had tiers for Education, Business and Nonprofits for a long time, with ISPs also known for using it for their customer emails too in the past.

Sky was one ISP that used to use them for customer emails before later switching to Yahoo.

[DanceswithUnix]

Looks like some mild back-pedalling has started: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022...free-accounts/

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The purchased content was an issue that should have been obvious, so it boggles the mind of why they didn't address it from the very beginning.