9 ms·

This is a relief. I might still move some of my personal domains off of GSuite, but the fact that I don't have to is honestly a real relief. And I wouldn't eve

This is a relief. I might still move some of my personal domains off of GSuite, but the fact that I don't have to is honestly a real relief. And I wouldn't even mind paying. If you wanted to charge me just for email without any of the other stuff and not offer support, I'd pay $100 a year if you could give me unlimited (or even 25 or whatever the original number of email addresses was) separate inboxes. But when you insist on charging me $5 or $6 a month per address and domain (which for my completely personal use case would be $24 a month), and I'm not ever going to use any of the other stuff -- then I get annoyed. Especially since I could have just set up an alias on a free account, years later, when that became an option. I understand these types of plans keep getting shut down because businesses or spammers or moochers abuse them, I do. But a personal/family targeted plan for hosted email with a custom domain should be something someone can offer that doesn't charge people $25 or $30 a month.

qbasic_forever 4y ago
I seriously doubt GSuite legacy was a huge spam vector. You still have to send mail through Google's gmail infrastructure and be beholden to all the spam, abuse, etc. mitigations in place there. GCE is probably a bigger source of spam with people spinning up a VM, cranking out millions of SMTP requests, and dipping out.
- advisedwang 4y ago
  GCE blocks outbound port 25 (https://cloud.google.com/vpc/docs/firewalls#blockedtraffic https://cloud.google.com/vpc/docs/firewalls#blockedtraffic)
- filmgirlcw 4y ago
  Well, it wasn't just Google. Microsoft cut out the free custom email domain for OneDrive, Zoho cut theirs way down -- so my feeling is that it had to have been abused in some way, even if it wasn't strictly spam.
  - Alupis 4y ago
    That's the thing though... it doesn't need to be free, it can have some cost - just not $6 per user per month. That's difficult to justify for fun/vanity/family email addresses. $6 monthly with unlimited (or some high number) of family member users would be fine. Any cost at all will limit spammers.
    - daydream 4y ago
      It looks like Microsoft 365 Family will get you 6 users, 1 TB storage each user, a custom domain, plus a bunch of Office apps for $99 a year. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/p/microsoft-365-family/cfq7ttc0k5dm?activetab=pivot:overviewtab https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/p/microsoft-36...
      - filmgirlcw 4y ago
        Yeah, there’s been mixed success on the custom domain part of that I think, otherwise I would have moved long ago because I get Office for $20 a year (former Microsoft employee), but I’ll definitely look into that. I’m happy to pay. I’m not willing to pay $25 - $30 a month for basic email just because I want separate inboxes and a custom domain.
      - Alupis 4y ago
        The custom domain option is only available for those who use GoDaddy as their registrar (which is not an option I'm willing to consider), plus they imply only the free domains (outlook.com, hotmail.com, msn.com, etc) get attachment screening, and email encryption.
        paulhart 4y ago
        You also don't get aliases with O365 Personal - you need to subscribe to a business plan for that.
        throwaway_4988 4y ago
- jsmith99 4y ago
  Google block outgoing SMTP on port 25
interestica 4y ago
Yeah this has been insanity. Really poor communication and rollout -- I swear I was one of the last to get notifications within email/admin. I'd gladly pay for the personal service if it wasn't per-user. Though, I'm sure google got a lot of value out of this. I switched myself and many others onto gsuite early on. It was some of their first introductions to the "google apps" that have now become the structure for their "Workspace".
- prawn 4y ago
  The fact that such poor communication and process can come from a giant employing so many clever people really makes me wonder. Is it more likely to be incompetence or intentional? I have a few domains aliased to my main one on GSuite Legacy, with aliased email for friends and family that I brought in with the understanding that it was always free. And now I have to shoulder monthly costs for these people. Or push them out and be doing tech support to help them set up elsewhere.
Alupis 4y ago
This is great news for those folks that already were on the GSuite Legacy plan... but it's of zero help for folks looking to set something like this up now for personal reasons. I own my last name as a domain, and always thought it would be fun to use it for my primary email as firstname@lastname.com. Well... $6 a month for an individual "vanity" email address is already hard enough to justify once you realize Workspaces doesn't give you a "real" gmail account (google assistant, google one, etc... meaning you still need to maintain another gmail address, defeating the point), and then once you have 2, 3, 6 family members also wanting a vanity email address, the cost is just insane. How is this not something anyone at Google have thought of? Gmail or use business accounts that come with a ton of strings attached.
- mikewave 4y ago
  You can easily get hosting for ~$20/yr from classic web hosts like Hostineer and just set up email forwarding to people's personal Gmail and get the same functionality with a little bit more control and flexibility on your part.
  - ISL 4y ago
    Email aliasing is more annoying/error-prone than directly hosted GSuite. I've done both.
    - mikewave 4y ago
      Sure, but unless your family is growing rapidly, it shouldn't be something you have to do very often.
    - Alupis 4y ago
      Ya, aliasing is certainly not a replacement - particularly for non-tech savvy family members. I've also been around long enough to know not to try running my own email server anymore... been there, done that (Zimbra & Exchange). While possible, it will consume more of your time than you want. It's just beyond me why the likes of Google and Microsoft have not come up with a Family plan for bringing your own domain name... one that doesn't cost $5-6+ per month per user.
denkmoon 4y ago
You can't rely on Google. This is your shot across the bow, use the extra time to prepare for the inevitable.
- voisin 4y ago
  This is the answer. Google is a bad partner. Learn from this.
- filmgirlcw 4y ago
  I mean, I’m not relying on them. But this is at least a few more months of me not having to consolidate to single inboxes, to a different platform, or to have to pay $24 a month for low-volume personal email accounts that I dared to want a custom domain name for.
- ChrisArchitect 4y ago
  based on their turnaround on this and willingness to reconsider support for the legion of free users who want to stay in the ecosystem and already have tons of stuff stored (this isn't just about email. photos and files are a huge deal.), it seems you can rely on them somewhat still.

qbasic_forever 4y ago

I seriously doubt GSuite legacy was a huge spam vector. You still have to send mail through Google's gmail infrastructure and be beholden to all the spam, abuse, etc. mitigations in place there. GCE is probably a bigger source of spam with people spinning up a VM, cranking out millions of SMTP requests, and dipping out.

advisedwang 4y ago
GCE blocks outbound port 25 (https://cloud.google.com/vpc/docs/firewalls#blockedtraffic https://cloud.google.com/vpc/docs/firewalls#blockedtraffic)
filmgirlcw 4y ago
Well, it wasn't just Google. Microsoft cut out the free custom email domain for OneDrive, Zoho cut theirs way down -- so my feeling is that it had to have been abused in some way, even if it wasn't strictly spam.
- Alupis 4y ago
  That's the thing though... it doesn't need to be free, it can have some cost - just not $6 per user per month. That's difficult to justify for fun/vanity/family email addresses. $6 monthly with unlimited (or some high number) of family member users would be fine. Any cost at all will limit spammers.
  - daydream 4y ago
    It looks like Microsoft 365 Family will get you 6 users, 1 TB storage each user, a custom domain, plus a bunch of Office apps for $99 a year. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/p/microsoft-365-family/cfq7ttc0k5dm?activetab=pivot:overviewtab https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/p/microsoft-36...
    - filmgirlcw 4y ago
      Yeah, there’s been mixed success on the custom domain part of that I think, otherwise I would have moved long ago because I get Office for $20 a year (former Microsoft employee), but I’ll definitely look into that. I’m happy to pay. I’m not willing to pay $25 - $30 a month for basic email just because I want separate inboxes and a custom domain.
    - Alupis 4y ago
      The custom domain option is only available for those who use GoDaddy as their registrar (which is not an option I'm willing to consider), plus they imply only the free domains (outlook.com, hotmail.com, msn.com, etc) get attachment screening, and email encryption.
      - paulhart 4y ago
        You also don't get aliases with O365 Personal - you need to subscribe to a business plan for that.
        throwaway_4988 4y ago
jsmith99 4y ago
Google block outgoing SMTP on port 25

interestica 4y ago

Yeah this has been insanity. Really poor communication and rollout -- I swear I was one of the last to get notifications within email/admin. I'd gladly pay for the personal service if it wasn't per-user. Though, I'm sure google got a lot of value out of this. I switched myself and many others onto gsuite early on. It was some of their first introductions to the "google apps" that have now become the structure for their "Workspace".

prawn 4y ago
The fact that such poor communication and process can come from a giant employing so many clever people really makes me wonder. Is it more likely to be incompetence or intentional? I have a few domains aliased to my main one on GSuite Legacy, with aliased email for friends and family that I brought in with the understanding that it was always free. And now I have to shoulder monthly costs for these people. Or push them out and be doing tech support to help them set up elsewhere.

Alupis 4y ago

This is great news for those folks that already were on the GSuite Legacy plan... but it's of zero help for folks looking to set something like this up now for personal reasons. I own my last name as a domain, and always thought it would be fun to use it for my primary email as firstname@lastname.com. Well... $6 a month for an individual "vanity" email address is already hard enough to justify once you realize Workspaces doesn't give you a "real" gmail account (google assistant, google one, etc... meaning you still need to maintain another gmail address, defeating the point), and then once you have 2, 3, 6 family members also wanting a vanity email address, the cost is just insane. How is this not something anyone at Google have thought of? Gmail or use business accounts that come with a ton of strings attached.

mikewave 4y ago
You can easily get hosting for ~$20/yr from classic web hosts like Hostineer and just set up email forwarding to people's personal Gmail and get the same functionality with a little bit more control and flexibility on your part.
- ISL 4y ago
  Email aliasing is more annoying/error-prone than directly hosted GSuite. I've done both.
  - mikewave 4y ago
    Sure, but unless your family is growing rapidly, it shouldn't be something you have to do very often.
  - Alupis 4y ago
    Ya, aliasing is certainly not a replacement - particularly for non-tech savvy family members. I've also been around long enough to know not to try running my own email server anymore... been there, done that (Zimbra & Exchange). While possible, it will consume more of your time than you want. It's just beyond me why the likes of Google and Microsoft have not come up with a Family plan for bringing your own domain name... one that doesn't cost $5-6+ per month per user.

denkmoon 4y ago

You can't rely on Google. This is your shot across the bow, use the extra time to prepare for the inevitable.

voisin 4y ago
This is the answer. Google is a bad partner. Learn from this.
filmgirlcw 4y ago
I mean, I’m not relying on them. But this is at least a few more months of me not having to consolidate to single inboxes, to a different platform, or to have to pay $24 a month for low-volume personal email accounts that I dared to want a custom domain name for.
ChrisArchitect 4y ago
based on their turnaround on this and willingness to reconsider support for the legion of free users who want to stay in the ecosystem and already have tons of stuff stored (this isn't just about email. photos and files are a huge deal.), it seems you can rely on them somewhat still.