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My guess is that killing (edit: free) workspace was more about reducing maintenance and technical debt costs for users rather than raising revenue. Google is a

My guess is that killing (edit: free) workspace was more about reducing maintenance and technical debt costs for users rather than raising revenue. Google is also unlikely to kill Gmail because Gmail is the incentive for users to be signed into a Google Account, which allows them to target ads to you. That's a critical anchor.

evan_ 5y ago
They aren't killing Workspace, they're just making users upgrade to a paid plan. It's the same product.
- oaiey 5y ago
  Not exactly. The plans are different with different product mix. At least I remember it like that.
  - kevincox 5y ago
    They could have just removed the difference if it was costing them so much. Very few features were different from the lowest workspace plan as far as I remember.
    - WorldMaker 5y ago
      So far as I could tell the remaining "difference" was price, and they probably thought it easier to raise the price on the grandfathered accounts than lower the price of the lowest tier. (Obviously, it's never easy to raise prices.)
      - kevincox 5y ago
        If the only remaining difference was price I don't think it would cost much at all to maintain. IIRC a couple of things were limited. I ran into a few. - Reduced Google Voice/Meet Calling options. - No TLS rules for mail.
        WorldMaker 5y ago
        > If the only remaining difference was price I don't think it would cost much at all to maintain. You are thinking about marginal costs. Even if there is no marginal cost for a "free" priced tier, that doesn't mean the operating costs of the tier go away and that the tier isn't likely losing money. We don't have transparent data on how much in terms of operating costs Google was eating for these grandfathered in free accounts, but it doesn't take a lot to imagine there were some operating costs that Google was possibly eating for some time now. I would imagine they ran they ran some sort of analysis on the pros/cons of goodwill/marketing versus operating costs and a price raise made sense.
- jrochkind1 5y ago
  Not only that, they actually killed free workspace years ago, they just grandfathered in legacy users. That's what they're ending. I am not sure if google will end up terminating free personal gmail eventually or not. But I don't take terminating the free workspaces some years ago, or terminating the grandfathered-in legacy leftover free workspaces more recently--as any kind of a signal for it.
  - lamontcg 5y ago
    Gmail is all "you are the product" free though. They're getting all that data from your e-mail and can chew it up and sell it back to other businesses (apparently they don't use it to target ads at you any more, but you can be certain they're still harvesting data). I'm fairly sure collecting all that data is core to their business model and they'd never make it paid.
- qwertox 5y ago
  Same product but with reduced functionality. For example, email routing isn't available (with the exception of the catch-all functionality).
jcutrell 5y ago
Your inbox is worth much more than your money, if they can take both they will. They are already charging for additional storage, so I expect it will just continue on that path.
- njhaveri 5y ago
  Agreed, I think they'll just never increase the free storage again. Eventually, people will get tired of quarterly inbox cleanups and just pay for the extra storage, which is a win-win for them and avoids a serious PR crisis.
  - azinman2 5y ago
    I’m surprised there aren’t some great tools out there that help with this. Seems like a niche to fill as it’s inevitable that peoples free storage hits limits over time.
    - Dyac 5y ago
      I know of two. https://mailstrom.co/ https://mailstrom.co/ https://clean.email/ https://clean.email/
      - azinman2 5y ago
        Mailstrom seems to be about unsubscribing, as somewhat does clean.email (ironically I find their home page to be the opposite of clean). I'm talking about finding the random 40 meg videos my dad sent me that should have been a YouTube link. Ideally such a tool WOULD find the YouTube link, and edit the email to include that.
        davchana 5y ago
        You could search gmail emails by operator like larger_than:10mb or such.
        5y ago
ceras 5y ago
The free versions of Google Workspace apps (Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs) are also there to build demand for the corporate version. Or worst case, if building demand fails, they at least create familiarity -- so that there's more employee acceptance to potentially switching from MS Office to Google Workspace.
- bushbaba 5y ago
  Not sure I agree on this. Those free versions existed before they had a business/paid offering. Google could at a future date make these a paid offering to boost earnings. There is no guarantee googles consumer services remain free long term
- jeremyjh 5y ago
  They discontinued offering the free version to new customers in 2012. I would expect they had already done the analysis on the marketing value and found it negligible.
  - ceras 5y ago
    I meant the @gmail.com versions of those apps.

evan_ 5y ago

They aren't killing Workspace, they're just making users upgrade to a paid plan. It's the same product.

oaiey 5y ago
Not exactly. The plans are different with different product mix. At least I remember it like that.
- kevincox 5y ago
  They could have just removed the difference if it was costing them so much. Very few features were different from the lowest workspace plan as far as I remember.
  - WorldMaker 5y ago
    So far as I could tell the remaining "difference" was price, and they probably thought it easier to raise the price on the grandfathered accounts than lower the price of the lowest tier. (Obviously, it's never easy to raise prices.)
    - kevincox 5y ago
      If the only remaining difference was price I don't think it would cost much at all to maintain. IIRC a couple of things were limited. I ran into a few. - Reduced Google Voice/Meet Calling options. - No TLS rules for mail.
      - WorldMaker 5y ago
        > If the only remaining difference was price I don't think it would cost much at all to maintain. You are thinking about marginal costs. Even if there is no marginal cost for a "free" priced tier, that doesn't mean the operating costs of the tier go away and that the tier isn't likely losing money. We don't have transparent data on how much in terms of operating costs Google was eating for these grandfathered in free accounts, but it doesn't take a lot to imagine there were some operating costs that Google was possibly eating for some time now. I would imagine they ran they ran some sort of analysis on the pros/cons of goodwill/marketing versus operating costs and a price raise made sense.
jrochkind1 5y ago
Not only that, they actually killed free workspace years ago, they just grandfathered in legacy users. That's what they're ending. I am not sure if google will end up terminating free personal gmail eventually or not. But I don't take terminating the free workspaces some years ago, or terminating the grandfathered-in legacy leftover free workspaces more recently--as any kind of a signal for it.
- lamontcg 5y ago
  Gmail is all "you are the product" free though. They're getting all that data from your e-mail and can chew it up and sell it back to other businesses (apparently they don't use it to target ads at you any more, but you can be certain they're still harvesting data). I'm fairly sure collecting all that data is core to their business model and they'd never make it paid.
qwertox 5y ago
Same product but with reduced functionality. For example, email routing isn't available (with the exception of the catch-all functionality).

jcutrell 5y ago

Your inbox is worth much more than your money, if they can take both they will. They are already charging for additional storage, so I expect it will just continue on that path.

njhaveri 5y ago
Agreed, I think they'll just never increase the free storage again. Eventually, people will get tired of quarterly inbox cleanups and just pay for the extra storage, which is a win-win for them and avoids a serious PR crisis.
- azinman2 5y ago
  I’m surprised there aren’t some great tools out there that help with this. Seems like a niche to fill as it’s inevitable that peoples free storage hits limits over time.
  - Dyac 5y ago
    I know of two. https://mailstrom.co/ https://mailstrom.co/ https://clean.email/ https://clean.email/
    - azinman2 5y ago
      Mailstrom seems to be about unsubscribing, as somewhat does clean.email (ironically I find their home page to be the opposite of clean). I'm talking about finding the random 40 meg videos my dad sent me that should have been a YouTube link. Ideally such a tool WOULD find the YouTube link, and edit the email to include that.
      - davchana 5y ago
        You could search gmail emails by operator like larger_than:10mb or such.
        5y ago

ceras 5y ago

The free versions of Google Workspace apps (Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs) are also there to build demand for the corporate version. Or worst case, if building demand fails, they at least create familiarity -- so that there's more employee acceptance to potentially switching from MS Office to Google Workspace.

bushbaba 5y ago
Not sure I agree on this. Those free versions existed before they had a business/paid offering. Google could at a future date make these a paid offering to boost earnings. There is no guarantee googles consumer services remain free long term
jeremyjh 5y ago
They discontinued offering the free version to new customers in 2012. I would expect they had already done the analysis on the marketing value and found it negligible.
- ceras 5y ago
  I meant the @gmail.com versions of those apps.