Giving folks one thing without cost after which slowly pushing them towards a paid subscription is a tech story as previous as time. However a gaggle of individuals with decade-old G Suite (now Google Workspace) accounts have managed a uncommon victory: retaining their free accounts for, effectively, free. And due to a current change, some are even getting further storage without charge — however it’s unclear what is going to occur subsequent.
Now, a few of these folks with legacy accounts are getting extra excellent news. Up till June 2022, Google saved letting legacy customers add extra particular person storage to their accounts with a separate subscription. However previously week, account homeowners who had opted to pay for that further house began getting emails from Google saying their storage subscriptions had been canceled. They’d gotten a refund on their final fee, however the higher information was on the finish of the message: “Whereas the subscription was canceled, your storage restrict has not modified, and also you don’t have to take any motion.”
There’s no assure Google gained’t change its thoughts sooner or later
Google spokesperson Jenny Thomson confirmed to The Verge that these customers will have the ability to maintain the additional space for storing and preserve their legacy accounts: “Clients who acquired this notification will preserve their storage allotment and may proceed utilizing their present account.” She tells us that the change additionally utilized to individuals who had already migrated to Workspace accounts however nonetheless had user-managed storage by means of Google Play — in keeping with a help web page, particular person storage gained’t be added to pooled storage totals.
For now, it seems that individuals who have been holding on to free G Suite accounts for greater than a decade at this level will get to maintain doing so — with a free storage bonus, too, in some circumstances. There’s no assure Google gained’t change its thoughts sooner or later, however till then, that’s a reasonably whole lot.
