Consolidate "Family Plan" suggestions?

[bornlucky]

There are a number of threads with quite a few "Likes" (relative to the size of the community), but none seem to have traction. @AndrewB is there a mechanism to consolidate the relevant threads found here to get an accurate count of those who would appreciate some more attention from you and the product/eng staff?

Thanks.

[AndrewB]

Hi @bornlucky - there is a new free option coming that is being worked on. I just wanted to make sure you saw this too. 

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In the coming months, we'll provide an option for you to move your non-Google Workspace paid content and most of your data to a no-cost option. This new option won't include premium features like custom email or multi-account management. You'll be able to evaluate this option prior to July 1, 2022 and prior to account suspension. We'll update this article with details in the coming months.

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[fedork · Accepted solution]

The main pain point is losing the existing account and all that is bound to it. "taking data out" is not really the issue, or much help. I signed up for "Google Apps For your Domain" way back (I was a Google employee at the time) and it certainly appeared as this was intended as free-for-life. Our whole digital livelihoods are bound to these accounts! Making them paid probably won't bring a lot of money for Google, and it is not *that* expensive for me personally, but there are two main reasons why I implore Google to reconsider: 1) the bait-and-switch nature of this when tied with sensitive nature of these accounts just hurts too much 2) this may or may not be a lot of money to pay for someone, but it sure bring in a bunch of painful considerations like having to arrange something like a succession plan and what-if-my-credit-card-expires and so on.

Please reconsider! I am sure the ill will this is going to generate is not worth it!

[Marvin0042]

I have a feeling Google in their infinite wisdom has tied themselves into a knot they don't know how to escape. The badwill they are getting must be more costly than the money saved by closing the Legacy G-Suite.

I wish there was a family option being worked on, allowing up to say 5-10 user accounts, custom email - similar to the non-profits workspace, maybe minus all the collaboration stuff no family uses. That would be useful instead of a half-baked workaround that will please nobody. It wouldn't cost much to implement, but to Google that means losing face, so it won't happen.

[bornlucky]

@AndrewB This feels more like an offramp from Google Workspace, to something like Google Cloud Identity. For me, the "won't include ... custom email" is a deal-breaker. The only reason I have GW is to provide me and my 2 kids email addresses on my domain.

To your knowledge, am I underestimating this? Is "custom email" something that a family wouldn't need, or is it describing the barebones email support that a family would need just to have their own shared domain for email?

The other thing that's frustrating for me, I already moved to GW and I'm surprised by what's still missing, in terms of support for standard Google features for browser and Android surfaces. I kind of doubt that admins who jumped on Google's request to migrate will be given a 2nd chance to use this mitigated option. Again, correct me if I'm wrong.

[Matthieuh]

Have a look at this: https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/Workspace-Discussions/Consolidate-quot-Family-Plan-quot-sugg...

[Matthieuh]

There is a workaround if you have a domain on google domain:

Create GMAIL account for all users of your domain

Point domain Alias to each GMAIL account

Let's say you had a Google Workspace free edition set for mydomain.com with a user: user@mydomain.com

Create and gmail account: user@gmail.com

Then go to google domain where you are hosting mydomain.com

Create alias user@mydomain.com TO: user@gmail.com

That's it. Transfer all email data throught IMAP