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Comment by Cordivae | Hacker News Reader

I hate Google Workspace so much.

Not because of the product, which seems fine. But because 10 years ago I signed up for google apps. It was marketed as a way to have a vanity gmail domain. Free forever up to 10 users.

I thought it was cool, was a huge Google fan at the time, and created a custom domain for myself and another one for my grandparents. Now, 10 years later they are holding my online persona hostage in a shameless cash grab to try and make Workspaces more profitable.

All I ever wanted was my own Gmail domain. I have zero use for the business functionality. Fuck you google.

I'm a VP of Cloud Platform for a rather large enterprise and quite frankly this is why we won't even consider Google Cloud. Broken trust. Broken promises.

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> Now, 10 years later they are holding my online persona hostage in a shameless cash grab to try and make Workspaces more profitable.

I'm in the same boat, but since ~2006 when I started my first company (dont recall exactly when I set up my google apps account though). I have to chose whether to move my account (which thanks to sign in with google is attached to more places than I can even remember), or pony up $6/mo/user with 20 friends and family having email accounts under my domain.

I have not yet decided what to do. But if I leave Google. I will leave for life, and that includes multiple other Workplace accounts that I already DO pay for. I'm sure losing a few thousand a year doesn't matter to them, but mail-in-a-box seems like a decent fit for my limited email I actually use on those older accounts.

Exactly. If I have to leave I will leave forever as well. To the point of buying a mac / iphone, and completely leaving the google ecosystem. That's how much this pisses me off.

Its now about the principle rather than how much it actually costs.

My baby, PretzelBox.cc, is no Google but it does give you an inbox for your domain and a half decent looking blog (https://pretzelbox.cc/blog/) and a way to store and share files.

/shameless_plug

The page you link doesn't exactly give a good impression. The logo in the top left links to bulma.io, The templates list links to one called "Very Cool", but there's no way to get back to the original template (except of course the back button). There's no link back to pretzelbox.cc. The landing page there is much better, but then one of the testimonials is for a service called Moogle. The only connection between Moogle and PretzelBox seems to be your Twitter account.

The /blog/ related issues you pointed are now fixed. Thank you!

You're right about Moogle. While I was working on building PretzelBox, I had launched just the blogging piece - i.e. post to your blog from Gmal - as a standalone service on Moogle.cc.

Appreciate you taking the time to give feedback.

I run an online club with about 20-something email addresses. We're almost certainly moving to Migadu (which doesn't charge per account and seems reputable, according to lots of folks here) and then downgrading our account to the "Google Workspace Essentials" so our Google Docs don't go anywhere.

I moved to Migadu from Google Apps a month ago. The only minor issue is slightly worse spam filter but everything else works well and the ability to use Sieve scripts is really nice.

> which thanks to sign in with google is attached to more places than I can even remember

I used to think refusing that option and creating new accounts was just me being obtuse, but I don't regret it now (and with a password manager it's mostly not a major drag).

Will all those people lose their email when something happens to you?

They shouldn't - I usually keep enough money in my corporate bank account that will keep the handful of expenses running for years.

I know it’s not the same thing but Cloudflare just released a new product for email that’s free. It just forwards any email from your domain in cloudflare. I already use cloudflare and instead of paying google apps for it, I just forward * to my gmail account. Thought it may be of some use if you’re not actively responding from them.

> All I ever wanted was my own Gmail domain

You don't need Workspace to use the Gmail UI with your custom domain. All you need is a regular free @gmail.com account. First switch your domain to an email hosting service that provides SMTP and IMAP, you probably get one free from your domain registrar. In Gmail settings for your @gmail account, add your custom domain as an alternate address for sending mail, using your SMTP server. Also configure Gmail to fetch mail from your IMAP server. Voila! Gmail is now a frontend for your custom domain, absolutely free. You can continue to use your existing custom email addresses, and you can forget about Workspace forever.

If you have purchased content such as Play Store apps that are tied to your Workspace account, you can downgrade it to a "Cloud Identity Free Edition" account, and continue to use it. This is a pain, and I think they are finally working on some kind of migration tool to move that content to another account. Hopefully that happens soon.

Is there an in-depth howto guide to do this?

FWIW, this is literally exactly how my product PretzelBox (https://pretzelbox.cc) works. We are looking for beta users, if you care to take it for a spin.

A few issues:

- The braced hamburger menu — your logo, actually, on your blog home page redirects to bulma.io.

- There’s no way to switch from the "Very Cool" template back to the original.

I’ll get these fixed asap! Thanks for highlighting.

Fixed! Thank you so much for pointing them out. Also added a couple of more templates to the menu.

This definitely works in a pinch but it's not quite the same. Things never work quite right, for example calendar invites, push notifications for email and Google Sign In. Also, most clients will expose your custom domain AND your gmail address when they receive the email. If you're using it as a semi-professional address, this is probably a deal breaker.

You are trivializing a migration that involves more than ten times as many components. Here's my todo list for the same problem:

- gmail - drive storage - calendar - contacts - keep - photos - music - domains - Pay - adsense - webmaster tools - analytics - authenticator - Home - maps - chrome - youtube - Play - email at external sites

Can you explain your idea about using Cloud Identity Free Edition in order to allow an email at a third party to own Play Store apps?

You don't have to transfer ownership of the apps. I'm not 100% certain but I believe that you can just login to the phone with both your real account and the Cloud Identity account, install the apps from the Play Store using the Cloud Identity account, and once they're installed you can use them with either account. That's how it works with other Google accounts. And of course you only need to do this with paid apps previously owned by the Cloud Identity account. New apps or free apps you can just get in your real account.

>All I ever wanted was my own Gmail domain.

Who owns the domain here? I use a custom domain with Gmail Workspaces, but I own the domain, and therefore control the MX records. The only thing I'd lose in a switch is stored email messages, but there are ways to download those.

Yes. I own the domains. And if they go through with this I will move and leave Google's ecosystem entirely.

It will be a huge pain in the ass trying to do it for my grandparents though.

Gotcha. Yeah, IT for the parents & grandparents is definitely a challenge for things like this.

It's a challenge for everybody. Having to put people who aren't computer savvy through it is just a reminder of what a pain in the ass it is... The fact that we can self-service doesn't make it less of an annoyance than we have to do something.

And at this point, the pattern is clear. Google Business products are free until they are not. Building them into your infrastructure is taking on technical debt that you will have to pay down in the future, either by actually buying the product when they decide it is no longer free or by switching to an alternative.

I still run into websites with a big API disabled rectangle where their Google maps integration used to be.

You need to migrate all the other google products you use with that email, including Photos, Play Store, Contacts, etc. It's about 20 products.

I wonder how many people with some clout have decided to forego Googles business offerings because of a bad personal interaction with them.

I use Gmail with my own domain for free. My domain registrar (namecheap) allows forwarding of email for free. You can add extra email addresses in Gmail itself.

When you send or reply using Gmail, does the email appear to come from your gmail account or your domain?

My own domain. I use Gandi's mail forwarding and SMTP (via GMail).

In Gmail you can choose the FROM address, so it appears to come from your own domain.

Is that large Enterprise a bank, or a company where VP actually means something?

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