Missing features from Workspace accounts

[BPM]

Greetings. I've been a user of this service for a very long time. Ever since it used to be known as Google Apps, even.

What's bothered me is how Workspace accounts are missing features/functions that standard Google accounts have. Off the top of my head, I have two issues I've run into:

1. Cannot rate/review apps/movies/etc in Google Play. We used to be able to, but this was disabled a couple of years ago. However, I can still edit ratings/reviews for content that I rated/reviewed before this change.

2. Cannot join family share for YouTube TV. I don't know if this has always been the case, as my family only recently signed up for YouTube TV. But, I had to join it using a secondary, standard Google account of mine.

I understand that Workspace accounts follow different agreements because of the nature of the service, as it's primarily used by businesses, schools, etc. However, this is a legacy free account that I use for personal use, as I wanted to use Gmail/Google services with my personal domain name. If I could've used my personal domain on a standard Google account, I would've...

That said, it should be allowed to the admin of each Workspace plan to determine whether or not they want to enable these services for their users. If we have to agree to additional ToS to do so, then so be it.

[kim_nilsson]

I so wish I could upvote this a million times!

Workspace accounts should not be lacking features!

Regardless if your Workspace is free or paid, these restrictions are insanely annoying.

The admin should always be able to enable/disable any Google/Alphabet service, and when enabled it should have all the same features that a consumer Gmail account has.

I could've been a paying customer for Family Google Music and then Family YouTube Premium for so many years, but instead I've had to subscribe to Spotify Family to get the kids their music, and force them to use adblockers to not go cray when watching videos.

I would rather pay for YouTube Premium, but I want a Family subscription, not four (4) individual accounts, nor do I at all want them to use consumer Gmail accounts.

I have the Workspace set up so I am in control of my children's accounts. As it should be. But we can't use our accounts for everything Google. That's not how it should be.

[atyr_itadmin]

While I agree the Business Starter plan could possibly include Family Sharing because they are often used for individuals, it is still designed for business. AKA these plans are far more often used for small business which will inherit the same issues as an Enterprise which owns accounts for potentially thousands of users and would bork at the prospect.  Not only for privacy purposes but the potential of users being deleted once they leave the organization and then losing their family plans. I do believe Google fails to make this clear prior to some jumping into Workspace from Gmail accounts and can cause frustration. Possibly having this as a Admin feature, disabled by default could be the solution although I do see a large number of problems with this such as who owns the Family Plan if it's connected to an Business/Enterprise account and the billing of Family Plans.

[kim_nilsson]

Yes, always controlled by the admin first.
Nothing allowed unless the admin enable it.

[RSKelley]

There should be nothing wrong with adding a free feature from a standard Google account such as Discover.  This helps keep even the business user up to date on recent trends, technologies and other subjects that the user is trying to stay abreast of.  The lack of such a feature in Workspace is frankly confusing.

[MikeyWestey]

I agree. Super annoying why the admin can't configure if such functionality should be enabled or now. Use Workspace for the family emails, and makes no sense the paying customer gets less than the free Gmail account gets.

[visvba]

Absolutely agree. Paid account has limits to review services wich are accesible through this account. This is the most bureaucratic restriction I met with within Google and it seems to me totaly contradictory to philosophy which Google wants to represents and to standard business relation with customers. All app developers are loosing feedback from workspace users to their apps.

[dwainbunker]

Moving away from Google is on my list of things to-do solely because of these limitations. Absurd, really.

[ferenczy]

I'm having the same issue and it's extremely annoying! I have the Workspace account also since it has been free as a Google Apps account and reason to get it was that I needed to have Google Apps under my own domain that I have registered to the surname of my family so we all can have email addresses in the format firstname@surname.cz and I can manage everything for the whole family. So those accounts are very personal, definitely not work or school accounts. I have also an old Gmail account that I'm not using anymore (just for testing), but my all members of my family have only the Workspace accounts, they're not able to switch accounts to get the missing features.

There's much more limitations than listed on the question and I don't understand what's the point of those (technical, business, privacy nor legal) but we're locked there (too much history, more than 12 years) and I don't know what to do about that. 

To Google: many people are using the Workspace for personal (often family) accounts. Please don't ignore us!

P.S.: We're not talking about business Workspace accounts used for personal purposes but about the whole Workspace created for personal purpose, e.g. to manage accounts of a family or to have accounts under a custom domain.