A lot of the world is powered by Google services and has been for a while. Back in 2006, the company released G Suite Legacy Free edition, and some people and organizations have been using it since then. Now, Google is shutting down the service and moving those users to a paid Google Workspace plan.
G Suite Legacy users will need to get a paid Workspace plan
If you’ve been a G Suite Legacy user over the years, you’ve been able to enjoy free access to free Google service, even though the service was discontinued back in 2012. It includes certain services like Gmail, Google Drive, Google Docs, and other services. While this has been great over the past 16 years, things are about to change.
According to 9To5Google, Google sent out a mass email to its G Suite Legacy users stating that the service is going to be completely shut down later on in the year. Not only that but, in order to continue using Google services, they will need to upgrade to a paid Google Workspace plan. This definitely seems like a big blow to anyone who’s been using the free plan all these years.
In the email, it says that users will need to upgrade their plan before July 1st, 2022 if they don’t want any interruption in their services. After that point, they will lose most of their services. While they will be able to keep some services, users will lose access to all of the business-centric services like Gmail and Google Drive. The services you will keep are YouTube and Google Photos.
Google will actually upgrade for you
Moving people from a free service is never a graceful process; this is why Google wants to do the process for you. Firstly, since there are different tiers to the Google Workspace service, Google will choose a plan that best suits your usage. After that point, if you have your payment information in the system, the company will put you on a plan. If you don’t have any payment information added, you will lose access to your services.
If this sounds like a bummer, Google wants to assuage the situation with plan discounts starting on July 1st. These discounts will last for 12 months after that date, and that should help out most of the users. At this point, Google hasn’t stated just how much these discounts will take off of the price. This will definitely inconvenience people who have been using the services these years.
2022-01-20 15:07:01