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In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

computerworld.com

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Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#51

Post by Aeolun »

andrewstuart wrote: post #7

Google's shutdown of products and APIs seems to have led to critical level of trust loss amongst developers and influencers. It's time for Google to either fix this or get out of providing services and APIs to developers. Google doesn't seem to put any weight at all on the outcry every time its shutters another service/API. The trust must be restored. Google doesn't seem to understand that when they shut service X, t…

I don’t know, they lost me with this one. They were on their initiation to join the ranks of the evil the last few years, but they’ve really stepped up their game this year and become a full fledged member.

I used to be a 100% Google products user, but my faith that it is fundamentally a good and ethical company has been systematically destroyed in the past years.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#52

Post by amaccuish »

omosubi wrote: post #16

I used to be a Google fan boy but am starting to dislike them more and more. This, they killed off reader and the creepy data collection they do is why I've started to look into alternatives for their products - anyone have any good suggestions?

They lost my trust with reader. The data collection stuff only confirmed it. I began to self-host my mail, and it's working out really well. I used SOGo, which does contacts and calendar too. For files I used Nextcloud. I use the Nextcloud News app as my reader. All authenticate to my home's LDAP servers, so same username and password, two-factor etc.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#53

Post by hyperbovine »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #37
beams_of_light wrote: post #12

This is puzzling, as Google pushed Inbox pretty hard. I was under the impression that the Gmail interface would be decommissioned, and Inbox would be the future.

If you've worked in large orgs it makes sense. They had a strategic priority a while back to 'make mail good on mobile' ... whereas now they are folding it all back into the gmail umbrella because the overall strategic impetus would be to be gmail founded. So, short term strategy now important with the longer term issues of product portfolio. Collapse the 'good bits' of inbox into Gmail and move forward. You have to…

I think most of it can be explained by your very first sentence. Gmail is 15 years old. It has massive institutional inertia and clout. Hundreds of engineers (https://www.quora.com/How-large-is-the-Gmail-team), probably a similar number of PHBs. Some of those people have spent their entire professional lives working on Gmail. They are loath to admit it sucks. Understandably.

You don't just phase that sort of thing out in favor of some upstart that came along three years ago. You can't. A category 5 shitstorm would ensue. Few people have the stomach for that.

Fine you say, can't Inbox and Gmail at least co-exist? There again the answer is no. The usurper must eventually be vanquished. The situation is not long-term sustainable.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#54

Post by sjg007 »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #37
beams_of_light wrote: post #12

This is puzzling, as Google pushed Inbox pretty hard. I was under the impression that the Gmail interface would be decommissioned, and Inbox would be the future.

If you've worked in large orgs it makes sense. They had a strategic priority a while back to 'make mail good on mobile' ... whereas now they are folding it all back into the gmail umbrella because the overall strategic impetus would be to be gmail founded. So, short term strategy now important with the longer term issues of product portfolio. Collapse the 'good bits' of inbox into Gmail and move forward. You have to…

My problem with gmail and inbox is that the search feature is terrible. I routinely have to search for things that I setup like a to do list or a recent reply.. and I use a few keywords and nothing can’t find them.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#55

Post by iamdave »

andrewstuart wrote: post #7

Google's shutdown of products and APIs seems to have led to critical level of trust loss amongst developers and influencers. It's time for Google to either fix this or get out of providing services and APIs to developers. Google doesn't seem to put any weight at all on the outcry every time its shutters another service/API. The trust must be restored. Google doesn't seem to understand that when they shut service X, t…

To put a positive suggestion forward, Google could consider giving all services a "sunset guarantee

I'd honestly even settle with something like a program where users can choose to enroll in these programs in some sort of test phase. Maybe put some kind of marker in the name or even on the logo that clearly informs and denotes "this product might not last long, it might go into production, it may die after 3 years, you have been warned".

There's a word for this but for some reason it eludes me (and apparently eludes google as well). At least it'd soften the blow when they inevitably roll things up on one of these so designated services.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#56

Post by nodelessness »

sorenjan wrote: post #40

I never bothered with Inbox because I figured Google would cancel it some day. I understands user's disappointment, but it can't be a surprise. This is what Google does. It's amazing to me that a company with close to 90 000 employees and that attracts top talent can't find a way to support their services longer than a few years. How much does a handfull of indian engineers and space in their own datacenter cost?

Are Indian engineers your favourite coolies that will do the dirty work of keeping your systems running after you've lost interest in them ?

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#58

Post by bootlooped »

alexnewman wrote: post #41
placuaf wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about man? You can easily turn it off in "configure inbox" section.

Yea but disables other things as well. Like the ability to snooze

Enabling/disabling tabs via "Configure Inbox", or through Settings > Inbox > Categories does not effect the ability to snooze. The only thing it effects is whether emails are sorted into different tabs or not.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#59

Post by amaccuish »

sorenjan wrote: post #40

I never bothered with Inbox because I figured Google would cancel it some day. I understands user's disappointment, but it can't be a surprise. This is what Google does. It's amazing to me that a company with close to 90 000 employees and that attracts top talent can't find a way to support their services longer than a few years. How much does a handfull of indian engineers and space in their own datacenter cost?

I was with you up until "handfull of indian engineers". No need.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#60

Post by JustSomeNobody »

foobarian wrote: post #45
omosubi wrote: post #16

I used to be a Google fan boy but am starting to dislike them more and more. This, they killed off reader and the creepy data collection they do is why I've started to look into alternatives for their products - anyone have any good suggestions?

I was a fan boy for a while due to the general Unix geekdom impedance match, and I disliked the Apple ecosystem due to being led by big-ego designers, but I still gotta admit, Apple's incentives are better aligned with the little people's (the end users') interest. In the case of Google the users are the advertisers and you get what you get. I see the decisions play out internally at the adtech company I work for, an…

Looking at the prices for the new iPhones, I don’t know what little people you mean.
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