"Despite repeatedly explaining this, they ignored my assertions and continue to hold my email hostage."

Well, you have become the product here. That also happens by other "free" email providers too. I had this happen to me on inbox.lt; the guy demanded I use a smartphone to "prove" my identity. At that point I realised they want to connect this data to the account and sell it to others who are interested in that.

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dagss 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Google Workspace isn't free, it is a paid for plan.

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zenincognito 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

its $13 per month for a basic plan.

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izacus 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What do you add to humanity with this crappy take? Why are you shitty to the victim?

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techteach00 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Because his honest and accurate diagnosis for why mega tech corps treat people inhumanely is the first step towards stopping it. In my opinion of course.

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skeeter2020 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

1. they're wrong in their basic understanding; this is not a free product

2. the response is glib and lacks any empathy

3. there's no suggestions of possible action or resolution path

4. it is all opinion and low value / low effort

So even if it's an "honest and accurate diagnosis" that you agree with, it's not helpful, valuable or even comforting. We can do better.

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walterbell 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What's a good alternative to Google Workspace for SMB customers?

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EvanAnderson 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Microsoft 365 is a reasonable alternative. It's easy to buy and even tiny Customers can get a degree of real human (read: tier 1 is unhelpful contractors that you have to fight thru) support.

It's still repugnant to me, as compared to self-hosting, but I would never self-host for a greenfield SMB Customer today. The economics don't make sense and the talent pool of knowledgeable and reasonable sysadmins is dwindling by the day. (I wouldn't want to make a Customer so beholden to me if they were willing to pay for it.)

I miss being able to spin-up an on-prem email server on a box with reasonable hardware redundancy, some external USB disks to rotate for off-site backup, a UPS, a couple consumer-grade "business class" Internet connections, and a contracted "backup MX" to catch email in the event of an outage. It was a good enough for a lot of small SMBs who had a physical office, and was cheap.

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Lihh27 6 hours ago | parent [-]

The economics make perfect sense once "30 days of a suspended business email with no timely recourse" shows up as a line item. That USB disk and a UPS is looking pretty cheap right about now.

	▲	EvanAnderson 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		OP really should be moving the MX somewhere else and going into disaster contingency mode. It sucks, but there's a level of survival there they should be willing to accept, at least temporarily.

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samlinnfer 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Office365?