Comment by ggm
Look I get your hot take anger, but this is misplaced. The word legacy here is real: if you had one from when they said it was free and obeyed their rules you can keep it. But it was grandfathered in and will die in time, as we do.
Really, your complaint is "oh dear, another privilege club I can't join because I'm not old enough and the ship has sailed" which is true.
I had free G Suite until 2022. I don't remember when I signed up for it but given Google discontinued signing up for it back in 2012, it must have been before then. 2022 was the time Google said no more free G Suite. So I upgraded to Business Starter. I didn't know that after I upgraded, Google introduced a free tier Google Workspace. Of course they never bothered to tell me, given that I had already started paying $3/mo as a special discounted price of Business Starter.
I even found the link posted by Redditors to convert the business starter account to free. That link expired in 2023.
This is the email Google sent me in 2022:
> As a valued customer, you can get started now with Google Workspace Business Starter. Billing will not start until at least August 1, 2022, and you’ll also get a discount of at least 50% for 12 months after that date.*
> Note: If you no longer want to use Gmail with your custom domain or the ability to manage multiple users, you’ll be able to join a waitlist in the Google Workspace Admin Console for a no-cost option in the coming weeks.
The only option presented to me was to stop using Gmail and enjoy a no-cost option. They must have backtracked later and offered a no-cost option with Gmail included.