[mario_lopez]

This is my preferred option: Simply pay (in the worst case, a subscription, in the best case, a one-time fee) to get rid of the ads. If I spend more than 10 hours a week on a platform (e.g. YouTube, Reddit, Twitch), I will gladly pay to keep the ads away.

I only wish Gmail gave me the option to do this.

[macintux]

> I only wish Gmail gave me the option to do this.

That's why I pay Fastmail: no ads, and no data harvesting.

[roenxi]

Given the direction Google is heading, it is quite unlikely but not unthinkable that they'll start locking the accounts / blocking the emails of people who spread "misinformation".

It is a good time to have a commercial relationship with an email service. Less likely for politics to get involved.

[toomuchtodo]

Also a FastMail user. I don’t want to give a single dollar or as impression to Google.

[nerdponx]

It just sucks to know that even premium paying subscribers still get surveilled as aggressively as the free users. It's the same with Spotify, major news outlets, financial institutions, etc.

[dudus]

Apparently there's a new version called google workspace individual. You keep an @gmail account pay a fee for some extra features.

https://workspace.google.com/individual/

Not sure if it's fully launched yet.

[tyingq]

Trying to figure out why "Individual" is $7.99/month, but "Business Starter" is $6.00/month. I see Business Starter is 30GB of storage. There's no figure cited for the Individual plan that I can see.

You do need a domain for Business Starter, but that cost would be less than the savings over the Individual plan.

[guu]

"Business Starter" accounts are a different category of account that can't join or create a family (To share YouTube Premium, YouTube TV, etc). Also, if you stop paying your email account gets suspended.

Individual is a "normal" Google account and doesn't increase your storage from the default 15GB or support custom domains. But if you stop paying you still have a valid @gmail account and just lose access to the additional features.

[tyingq]

>Also, if you stop paying your email account gets suspended.

"Business Starter" uses your own domain..."Custom email with your domain". So, yes, you would need to export the emails, but you retain your email address.

[sillysaurusx]

Do not buy any kind of gmail add on, subscription service, or anything.

I did, and when Gmail turned off my billing (for my own protection), I lost the ability to send and receive emails, because I was exceeding my drive quota by 1,200%.

I have to send them a passport photo (my ID is expired) and hope that they bless me with the ability to pay for additional storage again. But I realized it’s safer not to pay for anything.

[mkmk]

Calendly replacement, designed email templates, and video call collaboration features for $8/mo… interesting! So accustomed to Google’s “everything is free” approach that I’m curious to see how this does.

[TaylorAlexander]

My Gmail has been throwing up a “Workspace” splash screen when it launches. I think I’m paying a few dollars a year for Drive storage, so maybe they rolled me in to that.

[dudus]

I have that too but it's just google One. A different thing that only gives you extra storage, some photo editing features and some support.

Google workspace individual seems like a different thing. Kinda confusing to be honest.

[pg5]

I switched from Gmail to using a Microsoft O365 business subscription with my personal domain name. I don't like the UX or the fact I can't append +<any string> to my address to have infinite test emails, but at least I'm paying for a product instead of being the product.

[Rd6n6]

Just use fastmail or ProtonMail