The end of the free Google lunch

In July 2008 I moved my email with a custom domain to Gmail. Previously I was self-hosting it on a Linode virtual private server.

The move was seamless. I was happy to avoid maintaining my own Email infrastructure; Gmail was fast, reliable, and its user interface was nicer than the other webmails I tried. I have been a happy customer for a long time, and best of all it didn’t cost me anything. Back in 2008 this system was called Google Apps, and it was free for personal use. It was renamed to G suite, and is now called Google Workspace.

Today I received an email saying that this gravy train was about to stop, unless I switched to a paid plan. I don’t mind paying for this, Google provided an excellent service for almost 14 years.

Unfortunately, since I moved my email to Gmail, I lost faith in the company’s ethics. The days when the corporation’s motto was “don’t be evil” are gone. Since the firm’s main source of revenue is advertising I believe its values are fundamentally at odds with mine. The big G has grown enormously and expanded in various areas over the past decade. I don’t feel comfortable having my personal information stirred into its gargantuan data cauldron. Anybody paying money can get a ladle of data laced with some of my dark secrets.

So it looks like 2022 will be the year I move away from Gmail. I plan to document the journey here.