That is all I want. I'd even pay a small annual fee, but not $18/user/mo. Fuck google, for reneging on the arrangement after 14+ years.
If I'd known they'd come to behave as if their name was actually Greedle, I'd never have allowed them to become so ubiquitously integrated into my life. It's an abusive relationship, yet there is a fair amount of friction to switch to something else.
Assuming this is because you really like the Gmail app, you could check email from and send email as your other email accounts. Cloudflare Email Routing might be helpful for this as well: https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-email-routing/
FWIW, 14 years is a great time to get something for free. Should they have a cheaper family plan? Yes. Should they have grandfathered in existing subscribers for free? Sure, why not? But expecting that they provide a free service, forever seems a bit much.
Pandemic.
Inflation.
Rising taxes.
War.
And Google chooses now to start milking us even more. Despite the reality being that it is us, the users, who are the real product.
Google top brass: What a disgusting and merciless bunch. Turns out the goal of "user delight" was just a carrot to trick the engineers to build the machine.
It's not free however you want to paint it so. You are a product there and you have a service in exchange of a permission to use their service.
If we aren’t to except the service for free, then should we assume everything Google says is a lie? What am I to expect when Google says something concrete
This is not like other killed products where a promise of free serbice was stated. And the product isn’t being killed off just upgraded.