Instead they decided that stating "Free forever" doesn't mean forever and screw the people who decided to trust you from day 1.
Yeah, I know it's free and I shouldn't complain but moving email is a huge ordeal and giving me just a few months after 10+ years is a dick move. BTW, I have yet to receive an email from Google telling me that my account will no longer be free. I first heard of this on HN yesterday.
I don't want anyone to think that this is just a bunch of people who are upset about paying. I'm not upset about paying. I'm upset about Google promising something and then pulling the rug out from under us. I have multiple Google Workplace accounts for my actual businesses and at the moment I believe I spend $3k-$4k USD per year on all the accounts. My legacy account was used as a family account. After this ordeal, I'm probably switching all my paid workplace accounts to Zoho, Office365 or another provider. Maybe this is the kick in the butt I needed to degoogle my life?
Honestly I think this will end up proving to be a misstep akin to reader.
I can't imagine why that is. You'd think it would be easy. But I've had enough cases where my account wasn't compatible with something (especially my Pixel phone) that makes me suspect that this lets them jettison some of their code base.
Move me to the paid version, don't charge me, and then change me 50 bucks every time I need to open up a support case.
But for 50 bucks, I had better be able to get an actual person on the telephone ;-)
Since the email in question is <something>@<yourdomain>.com, can't you just add a forward for that email address to some other non-Google email at whatever hosting provider you use for <yourdomain>.com? Then the email address itself would still work, it just wouldn't go to the broken Google account.
Some of it includes pricing/specific products you can't sign up for any more, either.
I'd be happy if there was a way to migrate my account as is, with everything in tact to a regular@gmail account.
Maybe the oldest accounts will be exempted, maybe those with the least activity will be, who knows, I cant even find the KB article indicating that an upgrade must happen anymore.
Well, is it? Having your own domain makes it a little easier, doesn't it? Find an alternate service, update a handful of DNS entries, presto. Optionally use one of the various IMAP backup tools to move your mail. It's actually quite easy, IMHO.
I only have 1 user (a restriction which was already in force at the time I registered for the free tier), so I'm wondering whether this even applies to me?
I can't understands how people can expect free stuff to be forever... even more so here in Hacker News.
And the quote from Google:
> No, customers cannot move those subscriptions and purchases to a free Google Account. If a customer does not wish to upgrade, they will not be asked to forfeit their login credentials, and they will not lose access to other Google services, such as YouTube, Photos and Google Play, nor paid content, including YouTube and Play Store purchases.
So that sounds like I can migrate email, make sure I'm not using Google Docs, let the account drop to limited mode, and keep using my apps I've purchased. I don't really care about other Google services at this point because I haven't trusted them for years. As long as I can keep logging in on my phone so I have access to my app purchases, that's all I really care about.
It’s better than cutting everyone off entirely, but far from ideal. You’re basically left with a half cancelled account at that point.
Edit: See @jsnell’s followup. In this response, I totally forgot that you could just change the MX records and continue to use the Google Account. I don’t know why I thought this.
Also - as others have mentioned here, I too haven't received an official notification from Google about the impending decommissioning. If they backtrack on this now, I'll still be off the Google platform and a couple steps closer to getting out of the Google ecosystem completely.
How would that hurt Google besides taking away a modest revenue raising opportunity?
Edit: just to be clear, your account essentially becomes a gmail account that happens to have a custom domain name.
That would give them MORE features and services.
This would seem to be a viable model for ex-gapps accounts, although a regular "non Gmail Google account" still has access to Google calendar and drive and other tools that ex-gapps users seem to be denied access to. That becomes an interesting disparity.
What was most interesting of my particular setup was having my GSuite email address forwarded to my regular GMail account and having the ability to compose emails on behalf of the GSuite email address. When I did log into the actual GSuite account, it had close to 5k~ unsolicited emails caught in the spam filter that never got forwarded.
I literally have one user, and only use email. I wonder if they're targeting heavier users...
I still expect the problem. As a non US instance I'm wary of class action in the US anyway.
I don't want to download my entire Takeout history and re-establish anything. In my case my 'provider' running G Suite wants to shut it down and I'm happy to pay to continue the service running my own G Suite account/domain, but can't see a way to guarantee safe transfer of my data!
Nightmare really.
and
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20070222003704/http://www.google...
"GOOGLE APPS FOR YOUR DOMAIN BETA AGREEMENT [..] 18. Fees. Provided that Google continues to offer the Service to Customer, Google will continue to provide a version of the Service (with substantially the same services as those provided as of the Effective Date) free of charge to Customer; provided that such commitment (i) applies only to End User Accounts created during the period when the Service is considered a beta service (the "Beta Period") by Google (such Beta Period determination at Google's sole discretion), (ii) does not apply to the Domain Service described in Section 4 above, and (iii) may not apply to new opt-in services added by Google to the Service in the future. For sake of clarity, Google reserves the right to offer a premium version of the Service for a fee." --
-np
It's really not something I'm happy about needing to figure out all of a sudden.
I am OK with paying $6/user/month for the new plans but they don't include Google Voice, which is $10/user/month. I would be ecstatic if they had a cheaper plan that included Google Voice or if they allowed me to migrate my Google Voice number/account to a regular Google account.
I mean what if there was a clause in the original terms of service from all those years ago that said "free forever was not actually forever", and Google chose to stop being free today. What if it was always there and none of us noticed?
"Pitch" is not a contract. If you saved the terms of service when you signed up, please post it and show that Google promised that it would be available forever, for free. But it wasn't. Here's the actual Google Workspace (Free) Agreement [0]. You will note that, as is standard for online service contracts, they reserved the right to both modify the Service and Terms at any time ("1.2 Modifications") and it's expressly terminable at will (emphasis added): Quote: 10. Termination.
10.1 By Customer. Customer may discontinue use of the Service at any time.
10.2 By Google. Customer agrees that Google may at any time and for any reason terminate this Agreement and/or terminate the provision of all or any portion of the Service. Notwithstanding the foregoing, Google will provide at least thirty (30) days notice to Customer prior to terminating or suspending the Service; provided that the Service may be terminated immediately if (i) Customer has breached this Agreement or (ii) Google reasonably determines that it is commercially impractical to continue providing the Service in light of applicable laws.
10.3 Effects of Termination. If this Agreement terminates, then: (i) the rights granted by one party to the other will cease immediately (except as set forth in this Section); (ii) Google will provide Customer access to, and the ability to export, the Customer Data for a commercially reasonable period of time; and (iii) after a commercially reasonable period of time, Google will delete Customer Data by removing pointers to it on Google's active servers and overwriting it over time.
They've provided way more than 30 days, they're fine. Nobody sane promises forever but even if they do, contracts are governed by law and in general law (at least in the US) is very uncomfortable with perpetual contracts [1]. It's not always impossible to legally spell out perpetual but it usually has to be very specific and has serious requirements. There is lots of case law around this. An indefinite end term doesn't mean perpetual, on the contrary it is read as at-will since there is no end date. Google's ToS will be governed under California law and the 9th Circuit, and AFAIK it has to be specific there too, Shannon v. Civil Service Employees Ins. Union, 169 Cal. App. 2d 79, 337 P.2d 136, 138 (1959). [2]: Quote: Contracts for life or in perpetuity will only be upheld when the intention is clearly expressed in unequivocal terms, and courts are prone to hold against the theory that a contract infers a perpetuity of right or imposes a perpetuity of obligation, and they will only construe a contract to impose such an obligation when the written document itself compels the construction and none other. Contracts for life--and that is what is contended for here--are so unusual as to have been, with rare exceptions, condemned by the courts as unreasonable and unauthorized.
"Because of the unusual nature of life or perpetual agreements, the length and permanence of the obligation undertaken, the various unforeseeable events and conditions which may be encountered on such a journey in the future, and the unpredictable effects upon the parties, special precautions have been decreed essential, both as to consideration and the terms of employment, in construing and enforcing the compact. The responsibility assumed and the obligations imposed will be neither created nor spelled out by mere inference when they are not clearly and unequivocally expressed in the contract itself."
People on the internet have very weird ideas about law. Further, the remedy in civil law is about "making each party whole" and the courts in general loath specific performance. Normally remedy is about damages which can be covered with money. Maybe maybe maybe (not really) someone could squeeze out some switching cost, but no court is going to order Google to keep providing service that could be found elsewhere.
----
0: https://web.archive.org/web/20201031044304/https://workspace...
1: https://privateequity.weil.com/glenn-west-musings/forever-lo...
2: https://law.justia.com/cases/california/court-of-appeal/2d/1...
Transfer your custom domain to Google Domains (you have to pay for your domain registration as usual), as they allow to set up free email forwarding to your free gmail account.
This only works if you just want to not lose your email address (as me). Of course this is not a solution if you also rely on calendar, docs, etc...
The issue is that Google is dropping all other functionality associated with the accounts, particularly purchases made using these accounts, without the option to retain purchases if the domain administrator terminates the service instead of paying. (EDIT: there are other comments saying that Google's support page says that purchases can be accessed even after terminating the domain service. Redditors say otherwise. It appears that Google's support page has jumped the gun on intended functionality that doesn't actually exist yet.)
IOW: it's pay to keep your decade of purchases, or fuck you goodbye.
Crap like this is why I no longer invest in new Google products, and why I actively recommend alternatives to Google products (literally, "anything but Google") to friends and family who ask.
To say it's free, and then suddenly pull the carpet is something they may be able to do legally, but it is (hopefully) going to bring them the disaster they deserve. The cost of keeping those accounts at limited state and with locked features would be negligible compared to the loss in future revenue.
If they added custom domains to Google One I might be tempted to keep it.
At this point I might just go over to Microsoft 365 family which has storage, custom domains and extra fluff, as far as I can tell, for cheaper than just the storage at Google.
Is outlook that bad?
That said, at this point, starting from scratch, I'd pick it over Google in a heartbeat.
http://googlepress.blogspot.com/2006/08/google-launches-host...
"A standard edition of Google Apps for Your Domain is available today as a beta product without cost to domain administrators or end users. Key features include 2 gigabytes of email storage for each user, easy to use customization tools, and help for administrators via email or an online help center. 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)."
The original version of the TOS from August 2006 read as follows:
https://web.archive.org/web/20061029132431/https://www.googl...
"16. Modification. Except as provided in Section 17, Google reserves the right to change or modify any of the terms and conditions contained in this Agreement or any policy governing Google Apps, at any time, by posting the new agreement at http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/terms.html or such URL as Google may provide. Customer is responsible for regularly reviewing any updates to this Agreement. Any changes or modifications to this Agreement will become binding (i) when made in a writing executed by both parties, (ii) by Customer's online acceptance of updated terms, or (iii) after Customer's continued use of Google Apps after such terms have been updated by Google."
"17. No Fees. Provided that Google continues to offer Google Apps for Your Domain to Customer, Google will continue to provide a version of Google Apps for Your Domain (with substantially the same services as those provided as of the Effective Date) free of charge to Customer; provided that such commitment (i) applies only to End User Accounts created during the period when the Google Hosted Services are considered a beta service (the "Beta Period") by Google (such Beta Period determination at Google's sole discretion) and (ii) may not apply to new opt-in services added by Google to the Google Apps for Your Domain in the future. For sake of clarity, Google reserves the right to offer a premium version of Google Apps for Your Domain for a fee."
In mid 2007 the language was changed to read the following:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070407174217/http://www.google...
"17. Modification. Except as provided in Section 18, Google reserves the right to change or modify any of the terms and conditions contained in this Agreement or any policy governing the Service, at any time, by posting the new agreement at http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/terms.html or such URL as Google may provide. Customer is responsible for regularly reviewing any updates to this Agreement. Any changes or modifications to this Agreement will become binding (i) when made in a writing executed by both parties, (ii) by Customer's online acceptance of updated terms, or (iii) after Customer's continued use of the Service after such terms have been updated by Google."
"18. Fees. Provided that Google continues to offer the Service to Customer, Google will continue to provide a version of the Service (with substantially the same services as those provided as of the Effective Date) free of charge to Customer; provided that such commitment: (i) does not apply to the Domain Service described in Section 4 above; and (ii) may not apply to new opt-in services added by Google to the Service in the future. For sake of clarity, Google reserves the right to offer a premium version of the Service for a fee."
This version was persisting thru at least March of 2011:
https://web.archive.org/web/20110330181415/http://www.google...
However by December of 2011, that language was gone:
https://web.archive.org/web/20111231230542/http://www.google...
I wish them luck on that front at least, and morally it's really shitty for Google not to have a transfer mechanism for going between accounts. It is for Apple and everyone else like that too, absolute bullshit. And if it pressures Google to do the right thing even if they'd win then for once that'd be to the good. But while there is lots of outrage legally I'm still really skeptical.
But false advertising is definitely a thing one can sue over. And bait and switch might be subject to FTC fines.
I'm sorry but no, a 2006 blog post or something (which itself had caveats fwiw) doesn't rise to the level of overriding clear ToS for an ongoing service. There was no bait-and-switch here in the slightest, people got what they (didn't) pay for, and could not reasonably rely on it being "forever" anyway. Perpetual contracts are a matter of actual long standing California law and long standing court coverage.
Google should in the next 6-18 months (July for the service, but apparently first year is free on signing up for paid?) figure out a better offramp. Congress should make purchase transfers within a service the law too, much more important surgical measure than some of the silliness they're going on about with platforms. But Google isn't going to face any "false advertising" or "bait and switch" fines for this and shouldn't.
What "intended" functionality are you waiting for here? The documentation exists today on what happens when you cancel Google Workspace: https://support.google.com/a/answer/1257646?hl=en
The whole thing is a stupid, poorly conceived initiative which obviously wasn’t planned very well, since the comms from Google are so muddled.
FWIW, the small handful of people I've mentioned this to are indeed more concerned about their purchases and SSO than their email.
It seems takeout is acceptable enough to assuade any email concerns, in their cases.
Purchases and SSO aren't going away (it sounds like what is happening is that the grandfathered free GSuite accounts are transitioning to Google Cloud Identity Free, which is basically GSuite minus the core GSuite apps.)
I also feel like this is not that much a matter of cash but mostly a matter of having to consider Legacy accounts each time they want to do anything over Google Workspace. It's just more trouble for nothing at all at the end.
Time to degoogle my life. Google giveth and Google taketh, and Google discontinueth after years twain or so.
Of course they can do that too. But this is clearly screwing up people, as it is not easy to change a lifetime email address.
If they say I cannot store my photos anymore, that's fine. I can move them. Changing an email address is not an easy thing to do. Or losing all your Google play purchases.
But yeah, at the end of the day nobody is forced to do anything for free (despite nothing google offers being free, as they sell ads with my data) but this shows just how you cannot trust anything from Google.
Personally my solution to this will be to pay for iCloud and move everything over there. I had planned moving to iPhone for privacy reasons anyway, so this is just another nail on the coffin for using any Google service ever again.
Where did I say any of this was ok? I'm saying you simply can't trust them. You can't expect to cost something to someone and trust that they will keep doing that forever. A business need to make money...
> as they sell ads with my data
They didn't over G Suite legacy. Sure at least if there's ads you know they may make a bit of money, can you trust it's enough to cover what you cost them? That's a whole other story certainly, but for sure you can't trust that if you literally bring no monetary value for them.
> this shows just how you cannot trust anything from Google.
I'll again correct you, can't trust anything free.
It doesn't seem like it would, but I have found myself in plenty of situations where I couldn't give an "easy" feature or fix an "easy" bug because of some design choice that was riddled throughout the code. No idea what it might be, but I could take guesees.
The maintenance cost is probably small for them, but not to support a customer paying zero.
This suggests authentication and external stuff that depends on it will still work.
Considering GSuite is pretty much hot garbage in 2022, they're almost doing you a favor. Seriously, this is good for you. It'll be like you've been transported to the future!
You can still do that, and it's not some obscure feature but asked about on the first page of the account creation flow with the "use my current email address instead" button. It'll be a fully functional Google account, except for supporting mail, and can be changed to a gmail account later (that feature is obscure though).
My guess would be that these legacy accounts will end up as something different than a consumer Google account created with a non-gmail address, but guess we'll see once it launches.
It's may not be about supporting you as a user,but about supporting the feature of a free-tier of features whose users are >99.9% paying customers. I imagine having to pepper "is_billable() && !is_grandfathered()" everywhere gets old, and leads to some subtle bugs/test failures for a feature that's used by 0.03% (a guess) of users, who also happen to be non-paying.
Additionally, at Google's scale, systems interact with each other in non-trivial ways. As a hypothetical, if the CEO/director decrees that all teams should use G-Pay's code & internal infrastructure for all payments (for compliance reasons) by 2023, that may necessitate code & schema changes that do not work with "(mostly) billable customers" because grandfathered accounts may not have a billing method available (which G-Pay systems require); the G-Pay team can't add support for the "billable-customer-but-not-really" feature until the second half of 2024, unless the Workspaces team can just removing an item from the 2022 G-Pay roadmap that's projected to bring in an additional $200M revenue p.a.
Disclaimer: I'm not a Googler, I'm speculating based on my experience in large organizations with intricate cross-dependencies. The Workspace engineers may empathize with you, but their hands are tied,and they can't publicly share the trade-offs that are being made, which is unfortunate.
They probably forgot what they wrote in their blog post
http://googlepress.blogspot.com/2006/08/google-launches-host...
"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)."
Yes, they can claim they are no longer providing the service, but that's difficult to argue when they are providing a functionally identical service that is just a billing change to cause a "migration".
I design and sell software, telling me that Google "doesn't have the resources" to solve this, holds about as much water as a colander.
They could have just moved us up to the starter tier and given us a large enough pricing credit that the billing system will never charge me.
They could - but that's still work, and who will go to bat for this when there is other revenue-generating work to be done? "I kept non-paying-users from having to pay" isn't exactly promotion-packet material.
I commiserate with you - I too have a grandfathered domain (or 2), but 10+ years of ad-free services (email, Docs, GCloud, etc) for free in exchange for being Guinea pigs for a bit is a fantastic deal. Our utility as early-adopters was valuable at the start - now we're a disposable inconvenience. A vanishingly small number of "Free for life" deals are honored for life.
Edit:
> I design and sell software, telling me that Google "doesn't have the resources" to solve this, holds about as much water as a colander.
You misunderstand me: Google has the resources move every single paying customer to the free tier - if they choose to, but that is unlikely. They are equally unlikely to do replace revenue-generating work with something that doesn't move the needle: it's a question of motivation, not resources. For the software you design and sell, would you prioritize a feature only used by someone you donated your software to over your paying customers?
If those disappear, a lot of things people count on will implode.
And I don't know how I can migrate the apps which I've bought.
Some other domain providers do offer email forwarding so its not exactly a Google exclusive.
http://googlepress.blogspot.com/2006/08/google-launches-host...
"A standard edition of Google Apps for Your Domain is available today as a beta product without cost to domain administrators or end users. Key features include 2 gigabytes of email storage for each user, easy to use customization tools, and help for administrators via email or an online help center. 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)."
The original version of the TOS from August 2006 read as follows:
https://web.archive.org/web/20061029132431/https://www.googl...
"16. Modification. Except as provided in Section 17, Google reserves the right to change or modify any of the terms and conditions contained in this Agreement or any policy governing Google Apps, at any time, by posting the new agreement at http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/terms.html or such URL as Google may provide. Customer is responsible for regularly reviewing any updates to this Agreement. Any changes or modifications to this Agreement will become binding (i) when made in a writing executed by both parties, (ii) by Customer's online acceptance of updated terms, or (iii) after Customer's continued use of Google Apps after such terms have been updated by Google."
"17. No Fees. Provided that Google continues to offer Google Apps for Your Domain to Customer, Google will continue to provide a version of Google Apps for Your Domain (with substantially the same services as those provided as of the Effective Date) free of charge to Customer; provided that such commitment (i) applies only to End User Accounts created during the period when the Google Hosted Services are considered a beta service (the "Beta Period") by Google (such Beta Period determination at Google's sole discretion) and (ii) may not apply to new opt-in services added by Google to the Google Apps for Your Domain in the future. For sake of clarity, Google reserves the right to offer a premium version of Google Apps for Your Domain for a fee."
In mid 2007 the language was changed to read the following:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070407174217/http://www.google...
"17. Modification. Except as provided in Section 18, Google reserves the right to change or modify any of the terms and conditions contained in this Agreement or any policy governing the Service, at any time, by posting the new agreement at http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/terms.html or such URL as Google may provide. Customer is responsible for regularly reviewing any updates to this Agreement. Any changes or modifications to this Agreement will become binding (i) when made in a writing executed by both parties, (ii) by Customer's online acceptance of updated terms, or (iii) after Customer's continued use of the Service after such terms have been updated by Google."
"18. Fees. Provided that Google continues to offer the Service to Customer, Google will continue to provide a version of the Service (with substantially the same services as those provided as of the Effective Date) free of charge to Customer; provided that such commitment: (i) does not apply to the Domain Service described in Section 4 above; and (ii) may not apply to new opt-in services added by Google to the Service in the future. For sake of clarity, Google reserves the right to offer a premium version of the Service for a fee."
This version was persisting thru at least March of 2011:
https://web.archive.org/web/20110330181415/http://www.google...
However by December of 2011, that language was gone:
https://web.archive.org/web/20111231230542/http://www.google...