<story><title>I&apos;m tired of Google&apos;s business products</title><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been trying to start a business lately, and as many people do, have chosen to rely on Google&amp;#x27;s suite of products. Google Ads for marketing, Google workspace for email, Drive for spreadsheets... The works.&lt;p&gt;While working for other companies, I never really had a problem with their services. In fact, Google remains one of my favorite companies of all time for solving the search problem (their search engine is still the best, sorry haters).&lt;p&gt;However, over the past few months, I have STRUGGLED against the tide to use their other services. My Google ads account is currently suspended for reasons I cannot fathom. My Google Sheets spreadsheet is currently frozen (the reason I&amp;#x27;m ranting right now). Their administrative setting pages feel like going to the DMV from the amount of options on screen. Last but not least, their support is almost nonexistent.&lt;p&gt;Am I alone in this? Is this a problem of my own making, by using Safari instead of Chrome, and not configuring my services properly? Or is this a feeling that others get?&lt;p&gt;Conclusion: I hope Google gets some real competition soon because it feels like they are falling off.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Shameless plug, my company peddles a data movement tool called SQLpipe. https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;sqlpipe.com</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>jermaustin1</author><text>&amp;gt; Now, 10 years later they are holding my online persona hostage in a shameless cash grab to try and make Workspaces more profitable.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m in the same boat, but since ~2006 when I started my first company (dont recall exactly when I set up my google apps account though). I have to chose whether to move my account (which thanks to sign in with google is attached to more places than I can even remember), or pony up $6&amp;#x2F;mo&amp;#x2F;user with 20 friends and family having email accounts under my domain.&lt;p&gt;I have not yet decided what to do. But if I leave Google. I will leave for life, and that includes multiple other Workplace accounts that I already DO pay for. I&amp;#x27;m sure losing a few thousand a year doesn&amp;#x27;t matter to them, but mail-in-a-box seems like a decent fit for my limited email I actually use on those older accounts.</text></item><item><author>Cordivae</author><text>I &lt;i&gt;hate&lt;/i&gt; Google Workspace so much.&lt;p&gt;Not because of the product, which seems fine.  But because 10 years ago I signed up for google apps.  It was marketed as a way to have a vanity gmail domain.  Free forever up to 10 users.&lt;p&gt;I thought it was cool, was a huge Google fan at the time, and created a custom domain for myself and another one for my grandparents.  Now, 10 years later they are holding my online persona hostage in a shameless cash grab to try and make Workspaces more profitable.&lt;p&gt;All I ever wanted was my own Gmail domain.  I have zero use for the business functionality.  Fuck you google.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m a VP of Cloud Platform for a rather large enterprise and quite frankly this is why we won&amp;#x27;t even consider Google Cloud.  Broken trust.  Broken promises.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tehwhale810</author><text>I know it’s not the same thing but Cloudflare just released a new product for email that’s free. It just forwards any email from your domain in cloudflare. I already use cloudflare and instead of paying google apps for it, I just forward * to my gmail account. Thought it may be of some use if you’re not actively responding from them.</text></comment>
<story><title>I&apos;m tired of Google&apos;s business products</title><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been trying to start a business lately, and as many people do, have chosen to rely on Google&amp;#x27;s suite of products. Google Ads for marketing, Google workspace for email, Drive for spreadsheets... The works.&lt;p&gt;While working for other companies, I never really had a problem with their services. In fact, Google remains one of my favorite companies of all time for solving the search problem (their search engine is still the best, sorry haters).&lt;p&gt;However, over the past few months, I have STRUGGLED against the tide to use their other services. My Google ads account is currently suspended for reasons I cannot fathom. My Google Sheets spreadsheet is currently frozen (the reason I&amp;#x27;m ranting right now). Their administrative setting pages feel like going to the DMV from the amount of options on screen. Last but not least, their support is almost nonexistent.&lt;p&gt;Am I alone in this? Is this a problem of my own making, by using Safari instead of Chrome, and not configuring my services properly? Or is this a feeling that others get?&lt;p&gt;Conclusion: I hope Google gets some real competition soon because it feels like they are falling off.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Shameless plug, my company peddles a data movement tool called SQLpipe. https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;sqlpipe.com</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>jermaustin1</author><text>&amp;gt; Now, 10 years later they are holding my online persona hostage in a shameless cash grab to try and make Workspaces more profitable.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m in the same boat, but since ~2006 when I started my first company (dont recall exactly when I set up my google apps account though). I have to chose whether to move my account (which thanks to sign in with google is attached to more places than I can even remember), or pony up $6&amp;#x2F;mo&amp;#x2F;user with 20 friends and family having email accounts under my domain.&lt;p&gt;I have not yet decided what to do. But if I leave Google. I will leave for life, and that includes multiple other Workplace accounts that I already DO pay for. I&amp;#x27;m sure losing a few thousand a year doesn&amp;#x27;t matter to them, but mail-in-a-box seems like a decent fit for my limited email I actually use on those older accounts.</text></item><item><author>Cordivae</author><text>I &lt;i&gt;hate&lt;/i&gt; Google Workspace so much.&lt;p&gt;Not because of the product, which seems fine.  But because 10 years ago I signed up for google apps.  It was marketed as a way to have a vanity gmail domain.  Free forever up to 10 users.&lt;p&gt;I thought it was cool, was a huge Google fan at the time, and created a custom domain for myself and another one for my grandparents.  Now, 10 years later they are holding my online persona hostage in a shameless cash grab to try and make Workspaces more profitable.&lt;p&gt;All I ever wanted was my own Gmail domain.  I have zero use for the business functionality.  Fuck you google.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m a VP of Cloud Platform for a rather large enterprise and quite frankly this is why we won&amp;#x27;t even consider Google Cloud.  Broken trust.  Broken promises.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Cordivae</author><text>Exactly.  If I have to leave I will leave forever as well.  To the point of buying a mac &amp;#x2F; iphone, and completely leaving the google ecosystem.  That&amp;#x27;s how much this pisses me off.&lt;p&gt;Its now about the principle rather than how much it actually costs.</text></comment>