Google Legacy G-Suite Accounts
Be warned if you delete your Google Legacy Gmail/G-Suite/Workspace account – everything is deleted, your entire Google Account will disappear, including access to Google Ads, Analytics, Search Console, Google Maps, Google Photos, basically everything you have ever signed up for via your Google Account.
This means also if you have ever signed up for any service and need to reset the password or authenticate your account – you can’t, not without backing up your email address somewhere.
I think it would literally be easier for Google to let us all retire and die of old age than impose this on us, it’s hardly as if any new users will be signed up to these Legacy Accounts… and if you have a domain name attached – which many users will then you cannot change it.
I think it would have been easier for Google to simply not let us change anything, no new users… it would have certainly encouraged more people to think about how they are using their Google Services. And finally, the most obvious approach would be to delete any unused accounts after 6 months or less of use.
That would have been better from a PR angle, as it is Google are heading for a PR disaster, data blackmail and extortion spring to mind.
Because – quite simply – if you account goes then everything from your Android Apps to your YouTube preferences disappear as well.
Who’s Affected
So – obviously – not all Google Users are affected, anyone with a standard @gamil.com email address is fine, and everything continues for free. Also, all paying customers are unaffected. but anyone that uses their own Domain Name and signed up to Google free service anywhere between 2006 and 2012 will probably be affected.
And amazingly enough, the majority of those people are not businesses, they are families, hobbyists, charitable organisations and very small businesses. Anyone who looked for a ‘free’ handout from the company that promised to ‘do no evil’. Google encouraged this and gained a huge market share when Hotmail and Yahoo Mail were the only competition.
The bit Google now needs to watch is how all these small ground up users will feel towards Google when Google removes its support for them. Pretty negative. Having encouraged them to sign up, ensnared them in Google’s web of products, from mobiles to Photos, and then to turn around and suggest people just pay up. All at a time when Google makes huge profits from Advertising and pays yet less tax.
Google also need to watch out for their flagship Browser as more competitors produce Chrome-based privacy-conscious browsers. New computers come with Edge installed and unless you specifically request Chrome it will not happen. Start removing people’s YouTube History and map Data and people’s mobile usage will go down as well. In short, a dangerous game for Google.
Who’s affected, in truth millions of regular people. and we here at NCompass have now had multiple clients asking questions about what to do.
What Options are there?
There are Three Options that we recommend. You might call them two and half after you’ve read this though.
- Upgrade – pay – it will be free until October and then half price until May – who knows by then Google may have worked out something better. But the easy option is to pay up and maybe boot some of your children off if they don’t use the family email address you have given them.
- Swap – move your email to a low cost old fashioned IMAP/POP Account – I’ve often though these were going out of fashion with the rise of Microsoft365 and Google’s services. Why pay the tech giants £4.60 per month per email address. That will quickly add up to a lot of money per year. Where as if you have a website then you probably have free email accounts you can use.
Our prices for this would be in the region of £30 per year for unlimited email accounts. - Wait – Google have announced a free option – coming soon, but already people are wondering when soon is. We only have a few weeks before we have to start paying. And even then you can only join a waiting list. Basically though this ‘Free Version’ should including most things Google except Gmail – which you will lose access to. So then you’re onto our much cheaper IMAP/POP emails and you get to keep all your access to everything else Google.
Our advice really is to wait just a little longer.
What should Google be doing?
Welcome to the future. Google should of course be offering an upgrade path, the most obvious solution would be some sort of Family Plan as both Microsoft365 and Apple iCloud do… roughly $99 per year, in fact, Google already offer their Google One plan… all it needs is the ability to add your own domain name and job done. This would do for most Families and even Hobbyists and Charities.
This would take care of their moral leadership and support million of Google Legacy G-Suite users, leaving a handful of businesses (like us) to deal with in an alternative way.
Businesses, because so many of them are very small, usually one-man band’s often not techie orientated and also often dependent on Google need an alternative and this is simply to pick a new username and have everything switched across. Take away the ‘domain name’ feature of the Legacy Accounts – but leave the account active. At the moment, if you delete, suspend or lose access to your account, that’s it, everything gone.
The rest of us need to take heed – this day was coming, no matter what a Tech Company promises they have the muscle to rescind on their word, we mere mortals have to live with that. We shouldn’t feel to bad about it. But nor should we just cave in and pay up. There are alternatives and time moves on and new approaches do exist. we have to explore them.
Final Caveat
Inflation – this is what this is all about. Rising costs affect all tech companies as much as anyone else if just they have a different one of dealing with it. In a conversation with another client, they explained that they could avoid putting up prices if they just did fewer Promotions. A few fewer giveaways, 3 for the price 2 would have such an impact on their profitability that it would negate the need to price rises.
Should we be seeing less of a discount culture as time get a little harder?.
Other companies, in particular, tech companies are looking to be stricter on users, Netflix springs to mind, their solution is to prevent users from sharing passwords between family and friends, instead more people have to sign up. Spotify did this some years ago.
Amazon are also putting their prices up – introducing a Fuel surcharge which works out at about 10p per product across their website. And we ourselves are attempting to stay off increasing our prices by simply being a bit stricter in when we charge and when we offer friendly advice.
The key with Tech is that prices rises are never that simple, often affecting a proportion of customers’ services. This means like with Google only a certain group get affected. In Google’s case, it will be families, hobbyists, charities and small businesses. This can have long term effects, but only time will tell.
One thing is for sure though – Google will free up an awful lot of data space with this action.