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Comment by spankalee | Hacker News Reader

As a Googler and for much longer, a Google Apps user for my family, this is sad news.

I wish they had just fixed the experience for "vanity domains" so that they didn't require all the enterprise features, and didn't let administrators have complete control of users accounts. Then they could roll out new features to vanity users without needing the enterprise controls.

I understand that this is a little tricky, and involves no paying customers, but Google Apps was by far the best experience for custom domains. I'm sure it attracted the type of influencers that pull even more users. I used it for my family, bands, friends with very small businesses and more, and the other people on those domains not already using Gmail, in turn migrated their personal accounts to Gmail.

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I completely agree with this. I signed up for Google Apps for the sole purpose of having an email address at my own domain, and I always wished I could just have that email address supported by my existing Gmail account, rather than having to deal with the hassle of yet another account somewhere. I would gladly have paid for that.

Google's always been pretty good about making sure you aren't locked in to their services, likely due to the efforts of their Data Liberation Front[1], but it always seemed to me that being locked in to using an @gmail.com email address was a big exception to this.

[1] http://www.dataliberation.org/

Yes, there's really two parts to a "vanity" domain: I want a nice looking email address, and I want to own my email address no matter what service I use. It's nice to be able to also use an awesome service like Gmail on top of it.

It's worth some value to me, but $50/user/year is a bit much for a family of ~5 light email users.

I think this is only for new customers, not existing ones.

Right, but we're talking about the (now current) pricing model. There are many many many small family units that have not yet converted to "vanity" gmail. Now they won't ever.

Agreed, and what's annoying is that there isn't any middle ground in pricing. the XXX/customer/year model doesn't scale for people who don't make, well money.

The family / soccer club / non profit isn't going to spend $250 for five email addresses. I am sure there are other providers that offer similar services for much cheaper - and if not there is a big opportunity.

My recommendation would be to use Outlook.com. I am a LONG TIME Google Apps domain admin for SMBs and personal domains. Since this announcement and my feeling of total abandonment from Google for the "small guys" I started investigating. MICROSOFT DOES THIS VERY WELL!!!. Now, that being said, it isn't exactly as polished as the Google Apps experience but the Microsoft re-work of its web mail is great. A quick search will give some good reviews. So...what is a guy to do?...well... you simply go to domains.live.com, go through the registration process. Once complete you will have access the the Admin Center. You then administrate your domain email as you would have in Google Apps. Again, it will be the current Microsoft way BUT it works well. I just did it for a photographer (yep...small business). It works perfectly. Once you register for the Admin Center, you can administrate MULTIPLE domains from YOUR one Admin Center. Also, Microsoft is MUCH more generous with the number of user accounts you can create for your domain...Up to 500 at last count. Naturally it also comes with Calendar, SkyDrive, etc. They give you all of the DNS records you need. Also, once you set it all up...if you go to Outlook.com directly and sign in with your personal domain email address/account, it will do so for you always (if you use the Microsoft DNS records for email---> like mail.yourdomain.com) Otherwise you will initially get the Hotmail interface. Again, a quick search will yield articles for changing to the NEW Outlook.com interface. Happy Hosting!

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