Before Google kills free G Suite accounts, why not offer a family email plan?

Some longtime Google end users are going through a tough changeover. In the early days of Google’s organization-targeted efficiency service—first called “Google Applications for Your Domain” then “G Suite” and now “Google Workspace”—Google provided domain-branded Google “business” accounts for cost-free. From 2006 to 2012, people could make a cost-free Google Applications/G Suite account with a customized area, so their email finished with a area they owned, as a substitute of “@gmail.com.” In January, Google introduced a important policy transform and advised these users they wanted to start out paying the standard organization level for their Google accounts or encounter an account shutdown. It truly is an unfair rug pull for consumers who established up a free of charge account decades back with no warning that Google may sooner or later charge for it. These people today are in deep, with all details, email messages, and purchases stored on these accounts, and it feels like facts extortion to abruptly notify them to pay out up or shed everything.

Google later relented considerably and available a vague escape hatch option, promising that sometime these “Legacy G Suite” users could port their knowledge and purchases to a no cost consumer Gmail account—with the caveat that Google will never host their tailor made-area email any more. Many of the important precise specifics of this changeover plan are not general public still, but what is certain is the deadline for payment and account shutdowns, and buyers are just remaining to flap in the breeze when their panic builds.

A important challenge is that Google actually stopped pitching personalized-domain electronic mail to customers, and now these Legacy G Suite buyers have no apparent enhance path. In the past, there was nothing at all incorrect with utilizing Google Apps/G Suite for non-enterprise applications, and Google even encouraged it. Just search at the original Google Applications for Your Area web site publish, which says Google introduced the provider just after “listening to opinions from countless numbers of smaller businesses, K-12 universities, nonprofits, universities, even households with their own internet websites.” Google inspired families to use this, and now it truly is telling these households they are enterprises.

My concern is, why does this have to be so tough? Here is an thought: Present a Google Workspace (or Google One) “relatives approach” that supports a custom domain at a affordable client charge. This is just not a outrageous concept because all of Google’s competitors currently supply this. In my conversations with various individuals impacted by the policy alter, totally free G Suite customers aren’t essentially miffed about paying out for a personalized email area. Continue to, they typically usually are not organizations and really don’t want to spend business enterprise prices for G Suite.

Let’s review what Google is presenting to the competition. Google Workspace’s closest competitor is Office environment 365, and aside from the business enterprise offerings, Microsoft presents a “Microsoft 365 Loved ones” prepare. This is $100 for each yr for a six-human being relatives. It has 1TB of cloud storage for every user, a 50GB inbox, accessibility to all the Microsoft Office environment applications, and, critically, custom area e mail accounts. Even making use of the cheapest “Business enterprise Starter” prepare, Google Workspace is $6 per thirty day period for every person. If we match Microsoft’s 6 person, 1-yr offering, that is $432 for every year, and that’s only with 30GB of cloud storage per consumer. With 2TB of cloud storage per person, the up coming tier up is $12 for each consumer, for every month, or $864 for each yr.

Apple’s comparable product or service is the iCloud+ membership, which also provides custom area email assistance, commencing at $1 for each person for every month. That is six occasions fewer than what Google prices, and Apple is supplying 20GB a lot more for every user—50GB complete. For six persons, that would be $72 per yr, when Google would charge $432 per year for a reduce storage tier.