Google confirms Gmail is “here to stay” amid speculation over plans to scrap the email service::Claims that Google plans to sunset Gmail were a hoax, so there’s no need to panic
Why do I feel like them saying this makes it MORE likely theyre going to shut it down?
I have a few internal sources that say that gmail will be sunset slowly because Google finds it needs space for AI work.
My uncle works at Google and he says they’re bringing back Google+
But with the 15kb limit and the pay as you go $5 for 5mph? Basically you pay more per second the fast you go.
Next week: “Google scrapping gmail.”
100%
I doubt it. It’s free data, they ain’t getting rid of that.
It’s not free though. Running an email service is not cheap.
Trust me they make way more money by running the service then it costs to run especially considering that everything is now in house. They own their own servers.
It’s absolutely not free like you said though.
It’s free for you. I have absolutely no idea what point you’re trying to make.
exactly my thought.
“They are saying its here to stay, which means people should get their data off it asap”
Google almost killed Gmail for me - I’m on a deprecated google apps free family plan they tried to kill recently. It was going to cost over a hundred dollars a month to move everyone on my personal family domain to a professional plan to keep it, and at the last minute they retreated and kept it free.
But for me that was a warning shot I can’t ignore. Way back I ran a Microsoft Exchange server for the family, before that postfix with squirrelmail. But I’m tired of all the tech support that came with it, so some kind of permanent, relatively spam free email option that we call rely on for decades would be welcome.
ProtonMail has a family plan, and they promise to encrypt your emails.
PurelyMail is nice and super cheap, the only downside is that it’s run by a single guy.
Zoho is like 10 dollars per year per user, even though it’s geared towards companies and not families.
Proton is way too overpriced for older accounts with a lot of stuff accumulated and encryption is a gimmick unless you’re only communicating with other Proton users. All companies encrypt email at rest.
I’m currently using and can definitely recommend purely mail. Obviously backup, but so far the service has been excellent. It’s the only fairly priced service out there for personal hosting that supports custom domains.
Recently moved to protonmail. The setup was fairly easy, with proton copying all the mails over and setting up forwarding from gmail. I’ve started to gradually change accounts over. Decided to subscribe as well, even though could manage without.
If you buy a custom domain then you won’t have to worry in the future, you will be able to switch mail provider without changing your email on any service you use
That’s a good point. I’ve considered it before, but always struggle with coming up with a domain name. Also, with respect to tracking a personal domain means that anyone can check the registrar information to find full name, address etc?
Many registrars let you hide your personal data from public whois.
In the past I used to suggest Gandi as a good service, but they’ve been recently bought by a horrible company and they jacked up their prices.
Now I suggest Porkbun! I’m very happy with their service.
Alright, will consider it, thanks for the recommendation!
Google getting rid of gmail would have to be hands down one of the biggest internet shakeups since its inception. Gmail has been the de facto free email service for almost two decades now. They have like a 53% market share of emails in the U.S.
Also the shitstorm it would cause, when you can’t access an account that you used Gmail to sign up.
I’m glad I got my own website years ago…it’s literally just a function email server for me…no bullshit spam and I can have separate emails for stuff that I don’t need to monitor.
Maybe it would finally force the surprising number of websites out there that don’t allow for email changes to change their policies. I recently switched every account I could to a personal domain and I couldn’t believe how many just don’t allow for it.
It’s a weird problem actually. There are valid reasons for blacklisting and whitelisting free email providers.
Some sites only allow registrations from private domains. They blacklist all the free email providers, which makes sure that mostly businesses, academics, etc. are signing up for their services, rather than randos who may have little to no value as a user.
However, some sites see the randos as the only valuable users, and sometimes see private domains as a threat since a bad actor could use one to spawn an infinite number of valid email addresses for registering accounts. Free providers make it much harder to create a new address, so they whitelist them.
That isn’t the problem I have though, the issue was how many websites don’t let you change you email address full stop. Never had one reject my custom domain (but some shitty ones do reject email aliases)
I’m finishing up moving all my accounts to Proton. I don’t trust them at all anymore. Late stage capitalism at its finest.
The only reason I’m locked into Google is Gmail. If that goes away, I’ll purge everything Google from my life in a heartbeat.
I fully expect GMail to be enshittified in the future.
“GMail through gmail.com and GMail App: Always Free”
“GMail Pro (IMAP/POP/Forwarding): Only $3.99 / mo”
Don’t give them ideas
I couldn’t stand pop3 25 years ago, I can’t believe it’s still around
Of course it is. I know Google scraps a lot of things, but Gmail is for the most part liked and, far more importantly to Google, is an absolute treasure trove of personalised, easily parsable data, yet nowhere near as costly to maintain as, say, YouTube.
The fact that after making search, an email provider was their next big project, shows how serious they are about it.
It’s here to stay…for only $3.99 per month! *
*cost for monthly subscription only. Excludes fees for sending and receiving messages. Chat and others services extra.
Anyone want to take a bet, this is where we will be in 5 years?
Gmail is untouchable. That more than any other product has kept me tethered to Google since 2004. That being said I wouldn’t be surprised if some greedy, future regime at Google botches it up.
I already moved over to Proton in anticipation of Google charging for Gmail. It’s untouchable as far as longevity, but it’s going to be majorly enshittifiedto the point that leaving it will be more desirable than staying.
I am in the process of moving to Proton now. It’s way easier than I though it was going to be!
May I ask what steps you followed to make the transition smooth? I’ve been meaning to use proton + simplelogin, but I’m concerned it’ll quickly become a time sink to transition from one service to the other.
1: Register a new Proton account
2: Set up email forwarding from Gmail to Proton
3: Add a filter that labels all Mail incoming to Gmail with a Gmail label.
4: Whenever you feel like it, go to some of your Gmail labeled mail and change the registered mail to Proton etc.
I’d still recommend buying your own domain though, it took me less than 15 mins switching completely from Skiff to Proton, and I didn’t have to reregister anything. Only when you have a costum domain you’re truly serviceprovider-independent.
I second the custom domain part.
It’s easy to setup and it doesn’t lock you to any single provider, in case you want to change in the future
They need it for AI training I guess
see if they were even remotely trustworthy or even rational no one would ever even entertain the possibility of Gmail being discontinued. for any other party this would be laughable. with Google it’s plausible.
This would really be the ultimate fuck you to everyone if they did this. I sort of wish they would so we’d all stop giving them all our personal data.
