When Google told some small businesses in January that they could no longer use a customized email service and other workplace apps for free, long-time scholastic tester Richard J. Dalton Jr. To him, this felt like an unkept promise. – Prep company in Vancouver, British Columbia.
“They’re basically powerfully arming us to switch to something paid once we get used to this free service,” said Mr. Dalton, who set up a Google business email for his business in 2008.
Longtime users of the legacy free edition of G Suite, which includes email and apps like Docs and Calendar, have to start paying a monthly fee, typically around $6 for each work email address, Google said. Businesses that do not voluntarily switch to a paid service by June 27, automatically moved to someone. If they don’t pay by August 1, their account will be suspended.
While the cost of the paid service is more of a nuisance than a serious financial blow, small business owners affected by the change say they’re disappointed with the amateurish way Google has dealt with the process. They can’t help but think of a giant company billions of dollars in profit It’s squeezing little guys out for just a little money, some of the first businesses to use Google’s apps for business.
“It seemed unnecessarily trivial to me,” said Patrick Gant, owner of Think It Creative, a marketing consultancy in Ottawa. “It’s hard to feel sorry for someone who took something for free for a long time and is now told they have to pay for it. But there was a promise made. That’s what forced me to decide with Google over other alternatives.”
Google’s decision to charge organizations that use their apps for free is another example of looking for ways to make more money from your current business; just like it sometimes puts four ads on top of the search results instead of three and gets stuck. more ads to YouTube videos. In recent years, Google has moved more aggressively into selling software subscriptions to businesses and has competed more directly with companies. MicrosoftWord and Excel programs dominate the market.
The first May 1 date has been delayed after some longtime users complained about the change to a paid service. Google also said that people who use old accounts for personal reasons rather than work can continue to do so for free.
But some business owners said they had a hard time contacting customer support when deciding whether to pay Google or opt out of their service. With the deadline approaching, six small business owners speaking to The New York Times criticized the confusing and sometimes vacillating communications about the service change.
“I don’t mind if you fired us,” said Samad Sajanlal, owner of Supreme Equipment Company in McKinney, Texas, which provides software consulting and other technical services. “But don’t set an unrealistic deadline for us to go and find an alternative while you’re still deciding whether you really want to fire us.”
Google said the free version doesn’t include customer support, but gives users multiple ways to contact the company for help with their migration.
Google launched Gmail in 2004 and business applications such as: Docs and Sheets two years later. The search giant wanted startups and large stores to adopt its business software, so it offered the services for free, allowing companies to bring custom domains matching business names to Gmail.
While still testing apps, even said While business owners say the products will remain free for life, Google has stated from the beginning in the business software’s terms of service that the company may suspend or terminate the offer in the future. Google stopped new free signups in December 2012, but continued to support accounts known as the legacy free edition of G Suite.
In 2020, G Suite was renamed to Google Workspace. The overwhelming majority of people—the company says it has more than three billion total users—use a free version of Workspace. More than seven million organizations or individuals are paying for versions with additional tools and customer support, up from six million in 2020. Someone familiar with the issue said that the number of users still in the free old version from years ago is in the thousands. He asked for anonymity as who was not allowed to disclose these numbers to the public.
“We’re here to help our customers through this transition, including massive discounts on Google Workspace subscriptions,” Google spokesperson Katie Wattie said in a statement. “Switching to a Google Workspace subscription can be done in a few clicks.”
Mr. Dalton, who helps Canadian students get into American universities, said Google’s mandatory upgrades came at a bad time. He said the coronavirus pandemic has been devastating for his business. Venues have regularly canceled tests, some universities have suspended test requirements and requested less student preparation services.
From April 2020 to March 2021, operating income almost halved. Sales fell another 20 percent the next year. Things have started to improve in recent months, but your Score Booster is lagging behind its pre-pandemic performance.
“At this point, I’m focused on getting my business together,” said Mr. Dalton. “The last thing I want to do is change a service.” So he asked 11 of his part-time employees to start using their personal email addresses for work, and upgraded the remaining two accounts to the cheapest version of Google Workspace.
Mr. Gant’s business is a one-man shop and has been using Gmail for free since 2004. He said it wasn’t about money. His problem was difficulty. He needed to figure out whether to continue using Google or find another option.
Mr. Gant is still considering switching to Microsoft Outlook, Apple iCloud or ProtonMail or sticking with Google. He will decide what to do at the end of the month. Microsoft would cost him $100 Canadian per year. Apple will cost $50 and ProtonMail $160. Google would give him three months for free and then charge the same amount as Apple for a year. Next year, Google’s price would double.
Mr. Sajanlal, the sole employee of his business, signed up for Gmail’s business service in 2009. Years later, when he started his own business, he added his brother-in-law, Mesam Jiwani, to his G Suite account. This company, Fast Payment Systems, has helped small businesses in states including Texas and New York process credit card payments since 2020.
When Mr. Sajanlal told Mr. Jiwani that Google would start charging for each of his email addresses, Mr. Jiwani said: “Are you serious? Are they going to start robbing us?”
Mr. Jiwani said he stores transaction data for its 3,000 customers in Google Drive, so the company has started paying for its services, even though it’s considering switching to software provider Zoho. Mr Sajanlal left Google in March and set up his business emails on a server hosted by Nextcloud.
Stian Oksavik, a subsidiary of BeyondBits in Loxahatchee, Fla., that builds computer networks for customers, has switched to Apple’s iCloud service, which he already has access to as part of an existing subscription package.
“It was more about the fact that they changed the rules than it was about the amount they paid,” Mr. Oksavik said. They can change the rules again at any time,” he said.
