The announced end of free accounts in Google’s G Suite has been causing a heated atmosphere for a few days and may soon lead to a wave of lawsuits. Due to the very short transition period chosen until the accounts are partially closed, it will become even more difficult. But a smooth transition fails not only because of Google’s typically stubborn behavior but possibly because of completely different problems.
Google discontinued the free G Suite accounts more than ten years ago and tolerated continued use by the then users for a good ten years. For the vast majority of people, the topic has long since fallen into oblivion, but someone at Google seems to have figured out that a group of users is actually using a paid service for which they are not paying. However, this is not the fault of the user.
Anyone who offers something for free, then sets it up for new users and assures everyone else that they are protected, has brought this situation on themselves. But just as Google is to blame for the situation, you also have every right to pull the plug at any time. Perhaps the situation that had been tolerated for more than ten years should have been left alone because a solution does not seem to be as easy as one would think.
Some users are nagging at the impending deprecation, but they would certainly find it easier if all content purchased with these accounts could be transferred to another account. This is exactly the stumbling block that Google was aware of from the start. Nevertheless, it was stated that such a smooth transition to a standard account is not planned.
Problem Gmail
An automatic transition already fails with GMail: The biggest motivation for most users for this offer was probably to manage e-mails on their own domain with Gmail. So you can manage Jens @ googlewatchblog.de directly in the GMail interface. Practical. But what should the automatic transition look like? Jens @ gmail.com and all other short names are very likely already taken. A …@gmail.com, on the other hand, certainly nobody wants either. Of course, this can be solved via redirects, but the users themselves have to become active.
A solution would be within reach with the Google Workspace Essential Starter, which was announced just a few days ago, but so far these two pieces of the puzzle have not been put together.
Google Play media
problem Perhaps the bigger problem, which is beyond Google’s control, could be righted. Purchased apps, games, films, series and music are in many cases a licensed businesses. Suddenly transferring them to another owner could be problematic. Just because the same person is presumably behind it doesn’t mean that Google is allowed to pass on access to it. I can also be wrong and no one from the outside knows the details of the license agreements with the content providers. But I think that’s an important reason why a transition was ruled out from the start.
Whatever the solution, there is now talk of alternative offers, and not all users will like it. It’s possible that you didn’t do yourself a favor by stirring up the actually forgotten topic again and only allowing a short transition period. Overall, I don’t think it would be any more onerous for Google to maintain this old offering than to have users switch to the standard accounts.