This is a super annoying quirk, lots of things don't work well if you're using workspace as a normal gmail account, and they don't quite warn you up front.
It's pretty much my #1 example of Google's propensity for shipping its org chart.
Workspace accounts come with their own compliance requirements and edge cases that products need to handle, but rather than do that and provide a consistent user experience most product teams don't answer to the relevant PAs and so don't care, and Workspace accounts are a small enough minority of users that nobody has to care.
I've often railed against a particular way of doing product that's really common in our industry, but I suppose it's been a while so I'll do it again:
We have a real problem with metrics-driven product development, where we exclusively care about the 95% use case and actively disdain the 5% use cases.
On paper it makes sense - you direct your energies towards the highest-payback activities. But the problem is that every user falls into some 5% use cases, so a product that is purely made up of 95% use cases ends up becoming a patchwork that is frustrating to every user, somehow.
Rather than "product works great for 95% of users" you get "100% of users cut themselves on some corner of the product".
Google converted my mum's Gmail account to a workspace account automatically. Now she can't use her bedroom alarm clock because it's connected to my dad's Gmail account and you can't share access to workspace accounts. It's stupidly maddening.
And yes I realise that an IoT alarm clock is ridiculous, but that's not the point.
It was a proper Gmail account? Or was it an email@domain account that maybe was using her work email address?
I’m asking because I used to work adjacent to this area, and I know of only a few scenarios where an account becomes a workspace account after being a consumer account.
Off topic a bit: Facebook just converted my personal account to a professional account. I have no idea why. Although as I think about it for a moment, it might be related to the fact that I visit/use Facebook less than once a year....
It's a completely avoidable situation too, there's nothing stopping them from offering custom domains as a perk of paid Google One plans for regular Google accounts. Workspace is beyond overkill for individuals, you shouldn't need all that complexity just to attach a custom domain to a personal Gmail account.
I had to admin Google Workspace maybe 9-10 years ago. It was rough but I thought they'd beep refining it. I'm back in a company using GW and I swear to god it's gotten worse. The basic features that simple don't exist are boggling. It is not a serious product and I feel bad for companies that have to use it. I've been here three months and I'm already planning our migration away.
