Google Says It's Time for Longtime Small-Business Users To Pay Up (nytimes.com) 135
Google is charging some small businesses for email and other apps after more than a decade of free use. Business owners say Google is being callous. The New York Times: When Google told some small businesses in January that they would no longer be able to use a customized email service and other workplace apps for free, it felt like a broken promise for Richard J. Dalton Jr., a longtime user who operates a scholastic test-prep company in Vancouver, British Columbia. "They're basically strong-arming us to switch to something paid after they got us hooked on this free service," said Mr. Dalton, who first set up a Google work email for his business, Your Score Booster, in 2008. Google said the longtime users of what it calls its G Suite legacy free edition, which includes email and apps like Docs and Calendar, had to start paying a monthly charge, usually around $6 for each business email address. Businesses that do not voluntarily switch to a paid service by June 27 will be automatically moved to one. If they don't pay by Aug. 1, their accounts will be suspended.
While the cost of the paid service is more of an annoyance than a hard financial hit, small-business owners affected by the change say they have been disappointed by the ham-handed way that Google has dealt with the process. They can't help but feel that a giant company with billions of dollars in profits is squeezing little guys -- some of the first businesses to use Google's apps for work -- for just a bit of money. "It struck me as needlessly petty," said Patrick Gant, the owner of Think It Creative, a marketing consultancy in Ottawa. "It's hard to feel sorry for someone who received something for free for a long time and now are being told that they need to pay for it. But there was a promise that was made. That's what compelled me to make the decision to go with Google versus other alternatives."
Google's decision to charge organizations that have used its apps for free is another example of its search for ways to get more money out of its existing business, similar to how it has sometimes put four ads atop search results instead of three and has jammed more commercials into YouTube videos. In recent years, Google has more aggressively pushed into selling software subscriptions to businesses and competed more directly with Microsoft, whose Word and Excel programs rule the market. After a number of the longtime users complained about the change to a paid service, an initial May 1 deadline was delayed. Google also said people using old accounts for personal rather than business reasons could continue to do so for free. But some business owners said that as they mulled whether to pay Google or abandon its services, they struggled to get in touch with customer support.
While the cost of the paid service is more of an annoyance than a hard financial hit, small-business owners affected by the change say they have been disappointed by the ham-handed way that Google has dealt with the process. They can't help but feel that a giant company with billions of dollars in profits is squeezing little guys -- some of the first businesses to use Google's apps for work -- for just a bit of money. "It struck me as needlessly petty," said Patrick Gant, the owner of Think It Creative, a marketing consultancy in Ottawa. "It's hard to feel sorry for someone who received something for free for a long time and now are being told that they need to pay for it. But there was a promise that was made. That's what compelled me to make the decision to go with Google versus other alternatives."
Google's decision to charge organizations that have used its apps for free is another example of its search for ways to get more money out of its existing business, similar to how it has sometimes put four ads atop search results instead of three and has jammed more commercials into YouTube videos. In recent years, Google has more aggressively pushed into selling software subscriptions to businesses and competed more directly with Microsoft, whose Word and Excel programs rule the market. After a number of the longtime users complained about the change to a paid service, an initial May 1 deadline was delayed. Google also said people using old accounts for personal rather than business reasons could continue to do so for free. But some business owners said that as they mulled whether to pay Google or abandon its services, they struggled to get in touch with customer support.
no suprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:no suprise (Score:5, Insightful)
That got thrown into the woodchipper years ago.
Re: (Score:2)
What ever happened to "don't be evil" ?
Empty platitudes to deceive / sucker in potential hires, clients and users. The instant they had enough, they got rid of that sentiment.
Any advertising-first organization is, by nature, evil. Any ad agency, for example. Or any business whose purpose in life is to shove garbage into your eyeballs, based on data stolen / coerced / bought from anywhere.
I do hope that "The Higher They Go, The Harder They Fall" still applies. Google's cratering, when it comes, will be seismic.
Re: no suprise (Score:2)
"Empty platitudes to deceive / sucker in potential hires, clients and users. The instant they had enough, they got rid of that sentiment."
To be fair this is universal from the very top to the very bottom of American society. And now the question is how do we get people to stop instantly believing everything that others say just because their lips are moving?
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair, it's not just American society. It's capitalism.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
It goes back at least as far as democracy, if not further.
Re: no suprise (Score:3)
It goes back to the caveman days. Singing sweet ugs into the silverback woman's ears before smashing her head with a rock and raping her while she is unconscious and suffering internal bleeding and a skull fracture.
Re: no suprise (Score:2)
...and now you know the true origin of the caveman with the club dragging a woman by her hair sanitized and cliche trope.
Re:no suprise (Score:5, Funny)
Re:no suprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Because you think they're gonna give up the corporate surveillance business model if they charge their "customers" a normal usage fee? How naive...
Re: no suprise (Score:2)
Re:no suprise (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, they are giving it up for paid accounts.
It's in the terms of service that they won't mine your emails once you're on a business plan, as there are assumptions about corporate IP etc.
Could they be breaking the license illegally? Sure, but there's several HUGE corporate clients who would be all over them if any hint of it came up (KPMG for one uses them).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
The 1990's had great slogans and catchphrases. 2022 sure could use them.
"Wassup"
"No Ma'am"
"Do the Dew"
"You Fartknocker!"
"How YOU doin'?"
"Schwing"
"Yaaa, Baby!"
"NOT!"
"Talk to the hand"
"Hasta La Vista, Baby"
"Life is like a box of chocolates."
"Sup?"
"Yadda, yadda, yadda"
"Eat my shorts"
Compare that to 2022 which has "This site uses cookies.","I'm offended","Are you fully vaccinated", and "Sign up to recieve our texts? [Yes] [Maybe Later]"
Re:no suprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh give me a break.
I loathe Google as much the next guy. But in this case, Google provided those whiners a free service for over a decade, and now they're asking them to pay the equivalent of a Starbucks coffee per month. Cry me a river...
The only thing I'd be pissed off about if I was one of those "customers" would be that I'd have fed Google monetizable data for 10 years (it's free, so I'm the proverbial product, remember). And now, not only am I still under surveillance, I'd have to pay for the privilege too. Now that's callous.
But then I suspect the callousness is probably lost on those people, as they probably didn't give much of a shit about their privacy in return for a free service in the first place.
Re: no suprise (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, the unbridled corporate greed of charging market rate for a service similar to other offerings!
G Suite at $6/mo per user is comparable to Microsoft's offering.
The issue, I suspect, is that these offerings typically include custom domain names which the providers have to pay for, then there is the cost of collecting the fees which sometimes exceed the actual fee they are trying to collect.
Re: (Score:3)
There's just one problem. What is the difference between a few small business gsuite accounts and free gmail accounts as far as what it "costs" Google? All the same services are offered for free to Gmail users: email, calendar, google docs, google photos. They are making money off our data from the free legacy gsuite accounts just like they do the free gmail accounts. There's quite literally no difference. There's no support whatsoever, no one to talk to when things go bad. So given those facts I can on
Re: (Score:3)
"A few small business suite accounts"? I suspect the user base exceeds a million users.
The unique difference is the domain registration fees that google pays out of pocket versus the individual gmail user that is limited to the gmail.com domain. One costs actual money, the other does not.
Re: (Score:2)
The only thing I'd be pissed off about if I was one of those "customers" would be that I'd have fed Google monetizable data for 10 years (it's free, so I'm the proverbial product, remember).
Google doesn't monetize GSuite data, it's strictly fee for service. Except for those who haven't had to pay the fees, and didn't "pay" with data monetization either.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
But in this case, Google provided those whiners a free service for over a decade, and now they're asking them to pay the equivalent of a Starbucks coffee per month.
Exactly. These people knew what they were signing up for when Google said "limited time free exclusive and then a per-seat license". Oh wait they didn't.
Good work victim blaming there Darth Vader. Yeah people were counting on the deal not being altered because that's the basis of how business transactions work.
Re: (Score:2)
G suite was never "free". Google had an alternate means of monetization from day one. Hell go back through Slashdot history and you'll find endless debates about the privacy implications of this for businesses.
They are now double dipping. That is all.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, typo:
It fascinates me, this, "they're rich, they can afford to give me what I want for free, and they are evil for NOT giving me what I want for free" mentality.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Google makes enormous piles of money providing those free email services--from their real customers, the businesses who believe the line that advertising generates sales.
Now they want the product to pay them too?!!
TANSTAAFL... (Score:1)
Before this year, freebie services were fine to have out there, and a company could do it, hemorrhage cash, and be OK, similar to how it took decades for Amazon to get profitable. However, as money is now a lot more expensive and a fast depreciating resource, it isn't surprising that all the freebies are being cut, be it unlimited storage for educational places, and many more. I wouldn't be surprised if Google started shedding services again, especially things like GCP, or adding more monetization.
It is w
Re: (Score:2)
Thing anybody doubts that's still happening? Just because they're asking you to pay doesn't mean they'll stop spying on you.
Great opportunity to exit Google (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
IMHO Google
Re: (Score:3)
I've talked to a corporate lawyer about an analogous problem. I really doubt that they understand what mining the data is about. (I was trying to convince them that a MS contract was a dangerous thing to sign because of certain language in it. His response was (paraphrased) "no court would order that".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why would you pay for office when you had google docs for free? Because you needed 100% MS Office compatibility, not "nearly 100% compatible" I suspect.
How does Google charging for Docs and Sheets change anything?
Also, for now, companies can still buy office "permanent" licenses for a one-time fee. Companies choose to purchase software assurance licenses to allow them to run the latest OS & applications from MS for a low monthly/annual fee that is competitive with buying new software when upgrades are o
Re: (Score:2)
So, odds are that many if not most of Google's business users are also using MS Office anyhow, so if Google is going to charge you the
No surprise (Score:5, Funny)
Good old drug dealer tactics at work:
"First hit's free but you need to pay up for your next ones."
Re: No surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing wrong with the "drug dealer" tactic.
Re:No surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
Which drug dealer will fund your habit for more than a decade before hitting you with usage charges?
Re: (Score:2)
In a non-drug related term this is called "Bait and Switch".
Although I'm not sure if a fish related term is better than a drug related one...
Re: (Score:2)
It's only bait and switch if they explicitly stated this service would be free forever/in perpetuity, and I don't believe that promise was ever actually stated by google.
Re: No surprise (Score:2)
The companies ASS-U-MEd that Google would let them ride for free forever.
Tough shit on those companies. They more than anyone else should've known that there are no free rides.
Google seyz "Nice business you have here" (Score:5, Funny)
It'd be a shame if something were to happen to it!
Just like crack (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
This isn't the first time Google has done this, either. Their change-up of the Map API terms hit a lot of people hard.
Re: (Score:2)
In Googles case however its not "the first one", its "the first one, and every one for more than a decade afterward".
Meanwhile, the public have been clamouring for clamping down on the data usage that allows Google to offer these products for free, removing their funding source.
Which is why the comparisons here with drug dealers is stupid.
Re: (Score:2)
> the massive amounts of money they make they wouldn't need to resort to tactics like this
A half million small customers is better than a dozen large ones, especially if you provide no support.
The silver lining here is "if you're not the customer you're the product". It will be interesting to see if they still spy on these users after they start paying.
Interesting that $6 is just below minimum hourly wage everywhere in the US.
Gullible or Stupid? (Score:3)
Really? You never thought that Google might stop providing a free service?
Re: (Score:3)
I guess millions of gmail users should start worrying, eh. There's literally no practical difference to Google between my free gmail account and a free gapps account. Thus I cannot think of any rationale to take away the legacy free tier like they did (which they did reverse course on for non-profits and families).
See the thing is, when I first signed up for gapps when it was announced, Google stated it would remain free, just like gmail. There was no hint of some future subscription, anymore than you'd
Re: (Score:2)
I guess millions of gmail users should start worrying, eh. There's literally no practical difference to Google between my free gmail account and a free gapps account.
There is a big difference: Google monetizes the data of the consumer accounts, but not the GSuite accounts.
Thus I cannot think of any rationale to take away the legacy free tier like they did (which they did reverse course on for non-profits and families).
They reversed that decision. You can go to your GSuite admin page and report that you're a non-commercial user and keep your legacy free edition. I expect that this means they'll eventually start treating your GSuite accounts like regular consumer accounts, which will mean both the addition of the regular consumer features (e.g. family plans) which legacy GSuite accounts have not had, and that they'll
Re: (Score:2)
That's news to me. I was pretty sure they monetized the free gsuite accounts also, and I'm hard pressed to believe they did not do that regardless. But if not, that's a simple thing they could have done for a free tier. This debacle smacks of a mid-level executive getting greedy suddenly. The amount of money they stand to make from this move was pitifully small--gsuite hasn't had any new free signups for many years.
Re: (Score:2)
That's news to me. I was pretty sure they monetized the free gsuite accounts also
They couldn't, because the free accounts were signed up to the business Terms of Service. You and your free domain had the same legal relationship with Google as, say, Costco and their GSuite domain with 288,000 users. Ticking the box in GSuite to say that you use it for personal use moves you from the business ToS to the consumer ToS.
Re: (Score:2)
You never thought that Google might stop providing a free service.
Google has never provided a free service, no one does, they've always provided services via alternate means of monetisation. What people didn't expect is for Google to start double dipping.
Those hooked on AWS or Azure will be next (Score:5, Insightful)
"Free", just like fish bait (Score:2)
Famous last words.
Re: (Score:2)
Some people will take it in the suggested way. Other will take a different path. Around 1995 I switched to using GPL software, and at that time there WASN'T a decent word processor. There were a couple that sort of worked, but for anything fancy I had to write HTML. So I'm at one extreme end of the spectrum. (Actually, it wasn't *that* generic. When WordPerfect came out for Linux I bought a copy. It was more specifically anti-MS after some of the shenanigans that they had pulled. First I switched to
These deadbeats would never pay (Score:5, Informative)
This is a good opportunity for other fledgling companies. They could never compete with Google giving stuff away for free. Now that there is a price, competitors can cherry pick niche applications and actually sell it at a price above 0 dollars.
Re: (Score:2)
Remember this about all free internet services. A lot of startups don't charge at first, but there are only two outcomes. Either they go bust or they start getting some revenue somehow.
Re: (Score:2)
Introductory offer, no interest for first year
First order delivered for free ...
Google actually gave it away for 10 years. And it is still free for personal luse. Exemptions for non profits... If someone is actually running a money making business at some point you would consider making it run on robust services that you pay for.
If Google EULA ever promised "this service will be free for ever", they would be sending cold lawyer notices. If they are bellyaching in public, hop
Re: (Score:2)
If they had to pay for these services from day one, they might not have even been founded. Instead of being grateful for a 10 year holiday in fees for services, these deadbeats are bellyaching, bitching and moaning.
Hardly. The fee here isn't the issue and is minor. Any company that wouldn't have founded based on this fee isn't around. It's the one-sided change in license agreement that's the issue. It's the fact that Google has always used alternate means of monetising their services on their "free" tiers and are now double dipping is the issue. It's the fact that changing back end systems is always difficult (and Google knows it) that is the issue.
Yep these people have every reason to bitch and moan. Changing ToS whi
Re: (Score:2)
not something you expect a company to do to business customers.
If they're not paying, then they're not customers.
Re: These deadbeats would never pay (Score:2)
If you pay for the service (Score:3)
will Google stop scanning your email, etc, as input to the advertising profile that it builds on you ?
Re: (Score:2)
Goog$e (Score:3)
Are they saying that spying on you is less valuable than before?
If you pay, do you get support?
If you pay, will they still just cancel the entire project in a couple of years?
Google can keep its crap.
These accounts weren't Free (Score:2)
Small businesses paid by feeding Google information about their businesses, customers and vendors, whether the owners were aware or not. They also provided test subjects for Google's experiments with new interfaces, products and services.
Google is not only seeking ways to bolster their bottom line, but to have an alternative to monetizing their "customers" if regulations and technology limit the value they currently receive from snooping on small businesses conversations and transactions.
Had to end sometime (Score:5, Informative)
You can be mad that Google didn't handle it as well as they could they had to realize the free tier would end eventually even just as an admin headache, to have this cluster of edge case users out there.
That said, moral qualms about Google aside, as someone who transitioned a company over to Google for Domains over a decade ago shortly after they offered a paid tier it's really a bargain for a small business at $6 or even $15 a user. Get a terrific free email inbox that also supports IMAP and Outlook (if you're a real weirdo) as well as a good calendar system, cloud based office apps, a video conferencing app, a chat system, cloud storage and a bunch of other features with a pretty good administration system as well.
One can make a case that there are better options for all these but still, compared to years past just a single copy of MS Office would have cost more than what a full year of a user costs. We can argue all day about the dystopian cloud future but theres a reason this system and others like MS365 have taken off, it's jsut way less of a pain in the ass for small and medium sized businesses to manage day to day.
One thing I can agree with fully though is that the term "Google Customer Support" is not exactly something that exists.
the insane growth incentive (Score:5, Insightful)
If my company income is enough to support me and my employees, I'm happy. If I made about a million last year, and this year, and again next year, I'm happy as long as it keeps up with inflation. That's because I own the company. But if it is a corporation, traded on the exchange, I must bring in 20% more every year to satisfy the investors and market forecasters.
That's where Google is, and all the other big companies. That's insane and unsupportable in the long term. So they have to pinch every penny and extort every dollar and assimilate more companies to keep up with Wall Street demands.
Until the curtain comes down.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I wholeheartedly agree.
I've worked for a few tech companies before they went public - while they were awesome to work for - and each time the Street took over it was literally the worst thing for the rank and file. Before, we were able to pick our clients, pick our peers, etc., and felt like we had some say in the way things got done. The moment they went public, all of that went poof - and the companies went downhill, fast. Not necessarily in the amount of money they made - but they burned out their good p
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
this. And we do that with a "closed" system. Capitalism is built on the idea of infinite growth in a closed system. What a joke.
This is only true if you make the same mistake Karl Marx did, ignoring the value of knowledge. There is no indication that knowledge is finite.
Re: (Score:2)
It is not that I ignore it, I understand this is what the current system is predicated around. I postulate that it is an error to believe that it would save the implosion of the system.
You and Malthus both.
Do it yourself (Score:3)
I know it's highly unfashionable for businesses to run their own infrastructure, but it's really not that hard to set up your own mail server (or pay someone to set it up for you and maintain it.)
Then at least you have control over things. Cloud services are nothing more than someone else's computer, and once you're locked in, they have you in a chokehold.
In this specific case, unless Google made representations that the service would remain free for a specific time period, I have very little sympathy for the free tier users. Did they really expect a public company to offer free service perpetually?
Re:Do it yourself (Score:5, Informative)
I know it's highly unfashionable for businesses to run their own infrastructure, but it's really not that hard to set up your own mail server (or pay someone to set it up for you and maintain it.)
I'm not quite sure I'd call it "hard" at this point, but barring some specific use case or circumstance, it's definitely more trouble than it's worth for most.
First up, you need static IP service from your ISP. Typically, that's $20-$30/month more than the rest of the internet bill. Failure to do so, along with a failure to alter PTR records, is a pretty much guaranteed way that most of your mail will land in junk.
Then, you need something to put it on. An entry level Poweredge server with a handful of drives in it is going to run you somewhere around $7K.
Just that expense alone, in isolation, for a 10-user email system, compared with the $5/month Microsoft365 costs, will take 10 years to break even.
So now, we need software to put on it. Obviously, we're not going to look at MS Exchange, or Kerio Connect, or Icewarp, or Axigen, or Crossbox...we're going to look at exclusively $0 software. Personally, I've been a fan of Mailcow, in no small part because it's one of the handful of solutions which have Activesync support. So, Mailcow it is, which runs on Debian. Huzzah! $0 for software licensing, and we'll assume that whoever's setting it up is volunteering their time out of the goodness of their heart. So, a weekend is spent with setup and install, doing a bunch of DNS pointing, account setups, and the like.
Now we need some spam filtering. The included rspamD gets most of the egregious offenders, but even a modest business is going to consider its passthrough rate too high. Proxmox has a free option, and both ScrolloutF1 and Xeams exist, but in practice, most companies' insurance companies won't be happy with those solutions; they need checkbox compliance from commercial companies; Miracast, Symantec, Sonicwall, Spamtitan, Barracuda...those folks, who charge a few bucks a month just to filter your spam.
So, put it all together, and the reality is that self-hosting mail doesn't make sense on its own. Even if Google and MS made the baseline $10/month, it is a hard sell to those without regulatory reasons or principled stances. ...and this is coming from someone who absolutely prefers self-hosted to an ever-ballooning AWS bill.
Re: (Score:2)
You put all of your public-facing services on a cloud VM, which can be had for as little as $3.50 per month (eg, at Luna Node.) The big difference in this case is that if you're smart, you don't depend on specific cloud provider APIs and you control the software stack, so if your cloud VM provider starts annoying you, it's trivial to switch to another provider.
Re: (Score:2)
You put all of your public-facing services on a cloud VM, which can be had for as little as $3.50 per month (eg, at Luna Node.) The big difference in this case is that if you're smart, you don't depend on specific cloud provider APIs and you control the software stack, so if your cloud VM provider starts annoying you, it's trivial to switch to another provider.
The $3.50/mo tier at Lunanode doesn't meet Mailcow's minimum requirements; you'd need their $28/month tier to do so. Additionally, 15GB is a joke for an e-mail server. $0.03/gb/month * the 500GB I'd assume to be a bare minimum. $28 for the tier + 18.50/month for the storage = $46.50/month. Add in commercial mail filtering, and you're already paying more than what Google and Microsoft charge for e-mail. Sure, you can use a smaller tier by not-using Mailcow, but there are tradeoffs there, too. Virtualmin will
Re: (Score:2)
but it's really not that hard to set up your own mail server
I know. We can just get Janice in accounting to do it. What could possibly go wrong.
Cloud services are nothing more than someone else's computer
Yeah, guess what. We're talking about small businesses here. We're not talking about mega conglomerates with well funded IT people. This "someone else" is *MUCH* better at managing a computer than you are. Hell you even said so in your first sentence (pay someone to) the cloud is no different.
Did they really expect a public company to offer free service perpetually?
Yes why not? Google haven't ever done anything for free. They have always had alternative monetisation schemes and this case was no di
Business took the bait. (Score:2)
Just remember (Score:2)
Ok, people, newsflash here (Score:2)
I’m not defending google. They should know better than to promise “fore
A free lunch (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
It never was free, just because it didn't come with a bill doesn't mean Google was doing it for free.
What is happening here is the paedophile is charging you a monthly bill for his childcare services from now on.
I don't blame them for this, but (Score:2)
Good time to jump ship (Score:5, Insightful)
I used that service for free for 15 years or whatever, but when Google asked me to pay I took the opportunity to pay someone else. Fastmail is popular, but I went with Zoho because they suited me a bit better. I am happy that I was encouraged to leave Google, even if I have to pay now. (I know Google went back to offering the service for free for personal use, but I'll keep my data to myself from now on, thanks.)
Moral of the story: don't trust Google. They'll either sunset the thing you liked, or they'll squeeze you for something that used to be free.
Re: (Score:2)
If you're not a commercial user, you could have stuck with legacy free GSuite: https://support.google.com/a/a... [google.com].
Procrastination can be beneficial. I waited until almost the last minute to figure out where to move my email, and thanks to putting it off, I didn't have to do anything other than tick a checkbox in the GSuite admin page.
Re: (Score:2)
(I know Google went back to offering the service for free for personal use, but I'll keep my data to myself from now on, thanks.)
Re: (Score:2)
(I know Google went back to offering the service for free for personal use, but I'll keep my data to myself from now on, thanks.)
Actually, you did keep your data to yourself. You were operating under the GSuite commercial terms of service, under which Google doesn't monetize user data. Those of us who have claimed personal use are likely being shifted to the consumer ToS, though, same as normal Gmail accounts.
Work Opportunity?! (Score:2)
Could be an opportunity for independent devs.
Google are changing the terms... (Score:2)
easy peasy (Score:2)
Google's decision to charge organizations that have used its apps for free is another example of its search for ways to get more money out of its existing business
Why don't they just Google it?
Time to pay for being stupid (Score:2)
Free lunch from Google? Don't be stupid. Oh well, you're stupid.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: not just companies but families too have to pa (Score:5, Informative)
Yes they originally said that, but they changed their mind for personal use so you can keep your family accounts. You just need to login and tick the box, but you only have about a week left to do it. This story is just the same story from months ago, but now the personal use issue has been sorted the business users are still complaining that their free service is going away. I have a bit less sympathy for business users having to pay a small amount for a service they use to make money.
Re: not just companies but families too have to p (Score:2)
https://support.google.com/a/a... [google.com]
Re: (Score:2)
It may be worth your time to manage your own email server. You can register a domain name (I use Namecheap for a nominal yearly fee, which I don't remember off-hand), and then rent a small server (I use Kimsufi for $11.99/month), and have all your mail go through there. I get a Terabyte of disk space, which is plenty. I happen to use encrypted POP3, and download all my email to my home computer, so I don't need the Terabyte for my email. But I could setup an IMAP server if I were so inclined, and store my e
Re: (Score:2)
I second the server rental option. If your mail volume is small (under 25,000 messages per day, say) even a cheap VM will do fine. I have a KVM instance with OVH for $8/month and a backup with Luna Node for $3.50/month and they run my web site, Jitsi video conference server, IRC server and mail server.
You do want to pick a provider that doesn't have a reputation for hosting spammers, though... otherwise deliverability can be an issue. And it's pretty much mandatory at this point to DKIM-sign your email
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It is a decent amount of effort to get it all setup.
The first time is the hardest if you don't have experience in setting up servers, as you'll be spending a fair amount of time looking things up. Subsequent setups go fairly quickly, though, if you learned from the first one.
It typically takes me about twenty minutes or less to get Apache and Postfix installed and running with a Let's Encrypt certificate. Once they're installed, they largely take care of themselves except for software upgrades.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Some really shitty ISP's still do that, which is why I qualified that with, "If your ISP isn't total garbage." When I had one of the shittiest ISP's (AT&T), the policy was to block most ports by default. However, even they unblocked all ports upon request. Officially, they didn't support running servers off their service, but they didn't put any effort into enforcement. So I ran my home email and web server from a computer in my house for a while, before AT&T's dynamic addresses started being blocke
Re: (Score:2)
Why are you stuck with paying Google? You'll end up paying someone, I don't know anywhere that offers email hosting for forwarding completely for free, but you can probably get a better deal than Google. Check with your registrar or DNS provider to start with, I know mine provides basic email hosting as part of the standard DNS package. Or you can look into hiring a geek to set up a basic email server on a hosting service like LInode, it's not that hard and a minimum-spec VM runs like $5/month and will hand