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Comment by nighthawk454 | Hacker News Reader

"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further".

The problem here is there's no way out now. If 15 years ago you made the mistake of wanting gasp a domain for your email, you're basically roped into paying now.

Almost everything a free G Suite user wants is identical to the free @gmail account, which is remaining free. Except the custom domain. Fine - but there's no way to just lose the custom domain at this point.

Over the years, the Google account has grown in importance and things tied to it. It's fairly un-viable to migrate it to an @gmail account. Especially for your whole family.

So, the options are nuke all your Google accounts and suffer the consequences, or pay up.

Not like we didn't see this coming of course, but still sucks.

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You're not roped in (good, albeit not free, alternatives exist), but yeah, this is just a fuckover.

I've been paying google for GDrive for some time now, and that's about to end. It's back to Dropbox. I know, I don't have to do this, but the hell with google. I'm done. This is nothing short of a needless f---over, and I want as little to do with them as possible.

Not _absolutely_ roped in, but practically, yes. The cost of switching is ridiculously higher than the cost of just paying up - it's not a realistic option. Which, considering they also control how hard it is to switch, is a bit artificial.

It would be a little different if they did this to _everyone_ and completely removed the free @gmail plans. But instead they're targeting GSuite users when @gmail plans are _right there_, because they know they can get it.

Honestly, if it weren't for the alternatives setting somewhat of a market price, little could stop them from charging triple. The only comparable plan is the lowest tier of 4 tiers as it is, and I doubt it's gonna get _cheaper_ over time.

Not really - that was the whole point of getting my own domain, so I could move it over if something like this ever happened. Mail to me gets sent to user@domain.name, both before and after the switch. You can argue the other services like google drive and docs are harder to move, and that's true, but those also have their own alternatives that aren't quite as reliant as email is in having the same user@domain.name forever.

No, the domain is irrelevant now. Technically, I can keep my email going to my own domain. But this is the least of my concerns. The only "way out" is to completely de-Google-ify. But short of that I pretty much have to pay them.

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.

I completely agree.

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.

This is that moment where I feel really good about always making sure I didn't use my custom email domain address as a google account, and have maintained a gmail.com account all along to serve that role.

So for my situation, I can just use IMAP to move the mail to a new provider. Easy peasy.

To be fair to yourself, you signed up for one of these grandfathered plans before Google became a toxic brand.

> The cost of switching is ridiculously higher than the cost of just paying up - it's not a realistic option.

On "the cost of just paying up" side, also tally up the cost of dealing with whatever other shenanigans Google decides to pull later; knowing that you will be equally powerless and option-limited at that time too, and even more entrenched with them and hence with even more to lose at their whim.

I will literally go pay someone else more money a year, than pay google for the same services, because of how difficult they make it difficult to migrate my data out.

I am curious which other provider has a better, easier migration. Any particular you can recommend ?

Paid gmail.com would be commercially equivalent to a wholesale prepaid deal for Google searches.

I guess Google feels it has enough of a monopoly they can afford to piss off any finite number of people (even very early peer-to-peer evangelists of their product) and write it off as business as usual.

I mean, how many people _really_ are using this feature? And what added benefit do they provide to Google for being "early evangelists". Not defending Google, just a little surprised people think that being an early adopter would matter to a company as large as _Google_.

Exactly. What does Google expect to earn with this move? The increased revenue they're pulling with this must be _marginal_ compared to the rest of their product lines. Is it really worth it to annoy lifelong customers for pennies?

Conversely, how much could it possibly cost Google to keep this little band of early adopters pretty happy? Seems like cheap advertising.

There is no need to nuke all Google accounts. You can switch to the free edition of Cloud Identity - https://support.google.com/cloudidentity/answer/7319251?hl=e...

You will still need to find the replacement for gmail etc though

Can confirm. Went through the process for two domains.

- one that never had google workspace (had to signup for Cloud Identity Premium, then cancel right away, and add Cloud Identity Free from the Admin)

- one that had google workspace, removed the subscription to workspace form the Admin, then added Cloud Identity Free

So far it looks like you don't have access to Mail and Calendar, BUT you do get access to Google Play, Youtube and Google Drive and Docs!

Can this be used for an account with Google Play Developer and Adsense/Admob account?

All I see when I go to the Cloud Identity part of the Admin Panel's "Get More Services" page is a happy little coffee cup unhelpfully stating "You're getting the best out of Google. We will notify you when new subscriptions become available."

So I guess I'm not able to use that then.

Yes, you need to "upgrade" to "workspace" first then the "Cloud Identity" option becomes visible and after that you can "downgrade" to "Cloud Identity".

> If 15 years ago you made the mistake of wanting gasp a domain for your email, you're basically roped into paying now.

Why?

What's stopping you (or me, because I'm also affected) from exporting all data from Google, paying another provider for an e-mail service and changing the DNS settings?

Expecting Google to offer free services within their own sphere is one thing -- making gmail a paid service would be absurd, but this is not even close to being the same thing.

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