> You're complaining that a service you use all the time for a decade for free now might cost the equivalent of a cup of coffee per month?
It’s easy to paint customers as frightful moaners, but that’s a surefire way to lose customers, or at least alienate them. Google’s Reader debacle comes to mind.
In particular, the short notice period (3 months + 2 months grace) for something people have been using for a decade is jarring.
And these were the earliest customers of Google Apps for your Domain, and created a lot of positive word of mouth publicity for Google.
Ultimately, it’s not about right and wrong, it’s about how you make customers feel, and Google institutionally doesn’t know how to make ordinary customers feel great when things go wrong. It’s an institutional issue. (Exception: if you’ve got enterprise support for GCP. Then you get a lot of engagement.)
By the same token, people have been using free Gmail accounts for a while now. What do you think the perception will be if Google asked them to pony up $60 a year with 5 months’ notice?
It’s easy to paint customers as frightful moaners, but that’s a surefire way to lose customers, or at least alienate them. Google’s Reader debacle comes to mind.
In particular, the short notice period (3 months + 2 months grace) for something people have been using for a decade is jarring.
And these were the earliest customers of Google Apps for your Domain, and created a lot of positive word of mouth publicity for Google.
Ultimately, it’s not about right and wrong, it’s about how you make customers feel, and Google institutionally doesn’t know how to make ordinary customers feel great when things go wrong. It’s an institutional issue. (Exception: if you’ve got enterprise support for GCP. Then you get a lot of engagement.)
By the same token, people have been using free Gmail accounts for a while now. What do you think the perception will be if Google asked them to pony up $60 a year with 5 months’ notice?