There's light at the end of the tunnel for millions of employees forced to work from home, and Google is here for them ... or at least wants to keep Google Meet relevant in the meantime. Previously Google made its Meet video chat platform free and unlimited through March of this year, eschewing the 30-minute limit on free accounts. Now that freebie period has been extended until June 2021.

Technically there's still a time limit on Google Meet calls: 24 hours, though I wouldn't wish a literal day-long teleconference meeting on my worst enemy. The service is open to anyone with a Gmail account, expanding the original Worskspace userbase by a billion or two.

The move is a smart one for Google. Post-pandemic, employers will take a long, hard look at which jobs really need the constant presence and expensive real estate of a conventional office, at which point remote meetings will become more integral than the shared copier. The more people become familiar with Meet, the more people will be ready to actually pay for it once it's required.

Google Meet - Secure Video Meetings
Google Meet - Secure Video Meetings
Price: Free