My worst technical decision: AG Suite account for personal use

I am not a gambler, but over the years I have come to realize that buying a Google service is a game of Russian roulette. The Google graveyard will attest to the number of Google services that have perished over the years, but many other services remain unnecessarily stunted. Example: Google Workspace, or G Suite as it was previously known, for personal use.

Related: What is Google Workspace and is it worth it?

I’m sure some of you will suggest that I shouldn’t have used Google Workspace as a personal account in the beginning. However, when I signed up, Google actively marketed google apps and G Suite accounts for individual users and families who wanted their own personal domains. Even today, it is simply not possible to have a regular Gmail account with a custom domain associated with it. As someone without access to a Gmail account with first and last names, I chose the next best solution: a custom domain. Little did I know it would bite me repeatedly over the years.

My Google Workspace account page indicates that I set up my account sometime around 2009. Suffice it to say, it’s been a 13-year-long love-hate relationship. Like any relationship that goes through ups and downs, my honeymoon with G Suite lasted a few years when my primary use case revolved around emails. While Gmail for G Suite often got features later than the free Gmail service, these were embellishments at best and didn’t really bother me. The real problems started when Google started rolling out its broader product portfolio.

It was the summer of 2017 when Google introduced Google Pay in india. Named Tez at launch, it was part of the early crop of digital payment apps built to take advantage of India’s unified payment interface. I was eager to try the app simply because I didn’t trust the alternatives with my financial data. However, my journey into digital payments came to a halt soon enough. No, the app did not support G Suite accounts.

I thought these problems could be due to Tez being an exclusive app for India. Fast forward to 2018 and Google rolled Tez into Google Pay. That should solve the problem, right? That’s a no, again. In November 2020 the official Google Pay Twitter account confirmed support for G Suite accounts would be added in the coming months. It’s now mid-2022 and using a Google Workspace or G Suite account with Google Pay is still impossible. However, the problems go far beyond Google Pay.

When Google introduced the first-generation Google Home speaker in India in 2018, I was first in line to pick one to expand my growing smart home needs. Setting up the speaker was easy, but I soon discovered that it didn’t support calendars for G Suite accounts. Since quick access to calendars and reminders was one of my main requirements, the purchase was a complete failure for me. Ironically, the competing Echo Point from Amazon had no trouble tapping into my G Suite-based calendar. How’s that for supporting your own products?

Related: The best third-party Google Assistant speakers to spend your money on

But as it turns out, my problems with Google’s smart home ecosystem didn’t quite end there. Even today, there is no way to invite family members to your Google Home account if you created that account using a Google Workspace profile. I’ve searched long and hard in the admin dashboard to see if there’s a security setting I might have missed, but Google just doesn’t allow it.

It gets even worse when you look at investments in the Nest ecosystem. I recently got a Nest camera to see how it compares to my Omnipresent security cameras. For days I kept trying unsuccessfully to add the camera to my Google Home app until I noticed it could be a G Suite limitation. Sure, switching to a regular Gmail account got me started. I understand that Google wants to block access to the enhanced security and privacy promised by a business account, but the fact that there is no option at all to enable it surprises me. It’s also infuriating that Google doesn’t mention a lack of support for Workspace accounts anywhere on the packaging or in the app.

My list of issues is even longer, including services like Google One which is simply not available to Google Workspace users. Similarly, family sharing for Google Drive storage, YouTube Premium, or YouTube Music is not accessible to Google Workspace users. I’m not in a supported region, but Stadia is yet another service that isn’t supported with these accounts.

I know very well that there is a way to export data from Google Workspace and manually import some of it into a regular Gmail account. That said, the process is so tedious and cumbersome that it seems like Google has gone to great lengths to deter easy migrations. Frankly, I wouldn’t be too surprised if that were the case.

As a paying customer, it makes absolutely no sense for Google to exclude me from an entire ecosystem of products and services just because I was locked into a beta service. Tech purchases like phones and tablets are disposable, my online identity is not, and it’s just not feasible for me to switch to a regular Gmail account at this point. Most older users have had the custom email address as part of their online identity for nearly a decade. Since Gmail doesn’t allow custom domains, your only real option is to migrate a decade or more of communications to another email provider.

And that’s before we talk about all the associated services like Google Drive, Google Docs or even Google Photos. Or all your purchased apps, books and movies. Or the countless services you may have signed up for with your Google login.

See, it’s commendable to lock down external functions to preserve user privacy in a corporate space. However, if I can take the trouble to set up a custom domain for use with Google Workspace, I’m fully capable of understanding the risks associated with switching these features in the admin dashboard. Conversely, Google could also offer a basic plan for Gmail users who want to deploy a custom domain.

I rarely regret buying specific ecosystems, but despite my G Suite account being one of the most important pillars of my online existence, it’s without a doubt one of the worst technical decisions I’ve made.