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My worst tech decision: A G Suite account for personal use

80 points by SethMurphy 4y ago

replwoacause 4y ago
Same story here. I moved to Fastmail a few years ago and have no regrets. I’ll never use another Google service.
Arcuru 4y ago
Even internally at Google, a large number of employees are stuck in this situation and have pushed for it to be fixed for years, but AFAIK they are no closer to actually getting anything fixed.
- nr2x 4y ago
  SHARPEN FOCUS!
gerbler 4y ago
It's definitely not a perfect solution, but one approach could have been for the author to use a consumer Gmail account and to have set up the gsuite account as an alias.
danieldevries 4y ago
This is one of the main reasons I moved all critically important services (Government accounts, banking) to a different email provider. I should really do the same for SSO with Google account, but damn it's convenient...
aeternum 4y ago
Watch any of the 'a day in the life of a Google engineer' videos on youtube and it's clear why things like this happen. Very little work is done there.
superchroma 4y ago
Not mentioned: paying customers getting randomly banned and losing some or all of their Google account and primary email. Also the whole email scraping thing. I will never use a Google service as a mission critical part of my life ever again because of all this, they just have no interest in customers.
- r00fus 4y ago
  Well Larry Page has said he doesn't believe in customer support (like at all). So this is a value that flows from the top.
  - solarkraft 4y ago
    Wow, what's the reason? That it doesn't scale for free? A simple solution would be "well make reliable products then", but of course that's not free either.
reid 4y ago
Yes. I made the mistake of setting up Google Home with my “Google Apps for Your Domain” account I used since around 2009. Now I’m married and can’t add my wife. It’s been years and no changes: it still doesn’t work.
- rightbyte 4y ago
  My wife texts me each time she wants me to make the robot vacuum cleaner to do it's thing since you can't have multiple accounts and the backend bugs out when you switch devices to login from. Welcome to the future :)
  - nix23 4y ago
    Ah the legacy compatibility layer (aka you) ;)
  - mox1 4y ago
    My partner and I have found that us logging into multiple devices with the same account is much more supported. We have a shared password manager and email router setup. So us@domain.net gets forwarded to both our gmail accounts. I have the "send as" feature setup for us@domain.net as well. So we effectively have a custom domain in gmail, for sending and receiving. As far as the internet is concerned we are one entity with multiple devices.
    - quambene 4y ago
      Forwarding is clear, but how did you set up the "send as" feature?
      - saimiam 4y ago
        If you have smtp on your domain, gmail lets you add an smtp account to send email as anyone on your domain. The easiest way I know to have smtp for your domain is AWS SES.
- nr2x 4y ago
navjack27 4y ago
I'm glad I never got enticed by getting a paid account like that. Everything just works for me.
mrkstu 4y ago
Have a grandfathered 'free' family gSuite- luckily I personally use a regular gmail account for 99%, but for family members who standardized on the gSuite account, it has significant limitations- for instance I can't add them to my YouTube family premium account. Slowly migrating everyone off of it and just keeping it for single email address list distribution for family emails.
- fomine3 4y ago
  For YouTube, solution is easy and almost harmless because it supports brand account. Brand account can be shared between multiple Google accounts so just use normal Google account only for YouTube, without losing any history and playlist data. I have much pain about Google Home.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
cersa8 4y ago
Swpapped my G suite custom domain accounts for mailcow and never looked back. Luckily I never used these accounts for paid apps or other Google specific services.
bravetraveler 4y ago
Leaving is quite difficult, too I had a very, very hard time getting them to forget about my domain so that it would work elsewhere
browningstreet 4y ago
I have multiple G Suite accounts for business, and a @gmail.com account for everything else. All personal and subscribed and Google paid services (like Youtube Premium) go to the @gmail account. If/when I move the domains elsewhere, I still have my "tied to Google consumer services" account separated. I realized this was probably the way to go back when their chat and "Google Family" services wouldn't map to G Suite accounts. I would like to, and plan to, leave, but for now, this is the better way.
midislack 4y ago
Everybody who knows anything about the Google infrastructure burned out and quit less than two years after getting a job there. So nobody know how anything works. Google can't prove me wrong.
Macha 4y ago
Huh, I've been using G Suite with Google Pay (well it's Wallet as of last week) for a year now, but the author reports they can't. Is Indian Google Pay a different service to European Google Pay?
- aaomidi 4y ago
  Some stuff has very slowly been getting fixed. Wallet might be one of them.
- mattrick 4y ago
  There's 3 different versions of Google pay. Not too sure what the situation is where you live, but in the US the "new" Google Pay, which was based on an app for the Indian market, is now the default one with the "old" GPay being deprecated. Google Workspace/ GSuite accounts can not sign up for the new Google Pay and are stuck using the deprecated GPay. At least, that was the case when I got rid of my Pixel 6 months ago in favor of an iPhone :)
bink 4y ago
I have an old "Apps for Domains" account and used an email address from it to sign up for Nest years ago. When everyone's home security cams were getting hacked due to password re-use Google tried to force everyone to use a gmail account for auth. It sounded like a good idea. Every time I'd open the app it'd spam me with a notification asking me to use Google auth instead of a username and password. I'd try, but every time I'd get a cryptic error back. Turns out they don't support Apps/GSuite/Workspace accounts at all. That didn't stop them from spamming me for months, however.
fomine3 4y ago
Anything not related to Gmail (like Pay) is able to migrate to normal Google account (though it could be annoying). Multiple account is supported well on both web and Android. Google Home is real pain because it relies on every information Google have, including Gmail on my domain.

80 points by SethMurphy 4y ago

Same story here. I moved to Fastmail a few years ago and have no regrets. I’ll never use another Google service.

Even internally at Google, a large number of employees are stuck in this situation and have pushed for it to be fixed for years, but AFAIK they are no closer to actually getting anything fixed.

nr2x 4y ago
SHARPEN FOCUS!

gerbler 4y ago

It's definitely not a perfect solution, but one approach could have been for the author to use a consumer Gmail account and to have set up the gsuite account as an alias.

danieldevries 4y ago

This is one of the main reasons I moved all critically important services (Government accounts, banking) to a different email provider. I should really do the same for SSO with Google account, but damn it's convenient...

aeternum 4y ago

Watch any of the 'a day in the life of a Google engineer' videos on youtube and it's clear why things like this happen. Very little work is done there.

superchroma 4y ago

Not mentioned: paying customers getting randomly banned and losing some or all of their Google account and primary email. Also the whole email scraping thing. I will never use a Google service as a mission critical part of my life ever again because of all this, they just have no interest in customers.

r00fus 4y ago
Well Larry Page has said he doesn't believe in customer support (like at all). So this is a value that flows from the top.
- solarkraft 4y ago
  Wow, what's the reason? That it doesn't scale for free? A simple solution would be "well make reliable products then", but of course that's not free either.

reid 4y ago

Yes. I made the mistake of setting up Google Home with my “Google Apps for Your Domain” account I used since around 2009. Now I’m married and can’t add my wife. It’s been years and no changes: it still doesn’t work.

rightbyte 4y ago
My wife texts me each time she wants me to make the robot vacuum cleaner to do it's thing since you can't have multiple accounts and the backend bugs out when you switch devices to login from. Welcome to the future :)
- nix23 4y ago
  Ah the legacy compatibility layer (aka you) ;)
- mox1 4y ago
  My partner and I have found that us logging into multiple devices with the same account is much more supported. We have a shared password manager and email router setup. So us@domain.net gets forwarded to both our gmail accounts. I have the "send as" feature setup for us@domain.net as well. So we effectively have a custom domain in gmail, for sending and receiving. As far as the internet is concerned we are one entity with multiple devices.
  - quambene 4y ago
    Forwarding is clear, but how did you set up the "send as" feature?
    - saimiam 4y ago
      If you have smtp on your domain, gmail lets you add an smtp account to send email as anyone on your domain. The easiest way I know to have smtp for your domain is AWS SES.
nr2x 4y ago

navjack27 4y ago

I'm glad I never got enticed by getting a paid account like that. Everything just works for me.

mrkstu 4y ago

Have a grandfathered 'free' family gSuite- luckily I personally use a regular gmail account for 99%, but for family members who standardized on the gSuite account, it has significant limitations- for instance I can't add them to my YouTube family premium account. Slowly migrating everyone off of it and just keeping it for single email address list distribution for family emails.

fomine3 4y ago
For YouTube, solution is easy and almost harmless because it supports brand account. Brand account can be shared between multiple Google accounts so just use normal Google account only for YouTube, without losing any history and playlist data. I have much pain about Google Home.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

cersa8 4y ago

Swpapped my G suite custom domain accounts for mailcow and never looked back. Luckily I never used these accounts for paid apps or other Google specific services.

bravetraveler 4y ago

Leaving is quite difficult, too I had a very, very hard time getting them to forget about my domain so that it would work elsewhere

browningstreet 4y ago

I have multiple G Suite accounts for business, and a @gmail.com account for everything else. All personal and subscribed and Google paid services (like Youtube Premium) go to the @gmail account. If/when I move the domains elsewhere, I still have my "tied to Google consumer services" account separated. I realized this was probably the way to go back when their chat and "Google Family" services wouldn't map to G Suite accounts. I would like to, and plan to, leave, but for now, this is the better way.

midislack 4y ago

Everybody who knows anything about the Google infrastructure burned out and quit less than two years after getting a job there. So nobody know how anything works. Google can't prove me wrong.

Macha 4y ago

Huh, I've been using G Suite with Google Pay (well it's Wallet as of last week) for a year now, but the author reports they can't. Is Indian Google Pay a different service to European Google Pay?

aaomidi 4y ago
Some stuff has very slowly been getting fixed. Wallet might be one of them.
mattrick 4y ago
There's 3 different versions of Google pay. Not too sure what the situation is where you live, but in the US the "new" Google Pay, which was based on an app for the Indian market, is now the default one with the "old" GPay being deprecated. Google Workspace/ GSuite accounts can not sign up for the new Google Pay and are stuck using the deprecated GPay. At least, that was the case when I got rid of my Pixel 6 months ago in favor of an iPhone :)

bink 4y ago

I have an old "Apps for Domains" account and used an email address from it to sign up for Nest years ago. When everyone's home security cams were getting hacked due to password re-use Google tried to force everyone to use a gmail account for auth. It sounded like a good idea. Every time I'd open the app it'd spam me with a notification asking me to use Google auth instead of a username and password. I'd try, but every time I'd get a cryptic error back. Turns out they don't support Apps/GSuite/Workspace accounts at all. That didn't stop them from spamming me for months, however.

fomine3 4y ago

Anything not related to Gmail (like Pay) is able to migrate to normal Google account (though it could be annoying). Multiple account is supported well on both web and Android. Google Home is real pain because it relies on every information Google have, including Gmail on my domain.