When’s the last time Google has to even pretend to give a shit about the end user?
Before you all dismiss this idea, remember google reader? Super popular, super dead.
In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users
321–330 of 352 posts
Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users
#322If they'd just implement the reminders and grouping features in Gmail I'd be fine with this. I don't particularly care about how the UI looks. I use snoozed reminders so much and being able to unclutter my inbox with groups makes a huge difference. Doesn't seem like it would be hard to optionally include them in Gmail. Without them moving back to Gmail feels like a step backwards.
Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users
#323I'll miss reminders the most because I use my mail client as my ToDo lost as well. I switched to Gmail preemptively and I'm back to writing emails to myself again...
This. My inbox is a to-do list for things I need to act on. Anything else gets snoozed until it needs to be done. Having non-email to-do items here too worked so well for me. Having to move back to a separate to-do list will be a pain. If they could just add this I'll happily return to Gmail.
Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users
#324There is always so much vitriol on HN about these kinds of announcements. I've never understood why. Google presumably has lots of data and feedback from people using Inbox, and determined that it wasn't useful enough or widespread enough to justify ongoing investment. Why is this surprising or shocking? This happens all the time in commercial and open source software. The internet is great, but unfortunately has the…
In the case of open source project, * if the maintainer is no longer able to take the project further, the code is still there an can be used as is, maybe with a few bugfixes. (ala, thunderbird). The code does not disappear overnight. r. * All the associated data is still yours and available. So no information is lost. * If it is very critical, you can develop it yourself further I am not an user of Inbox, but I can…
>The most ironic aspect is you no longer have access to your pinned emails, bundles and such.
Luckily, GDPR and it's predecessor allows you to download that data... Getting it into another program is a bigger challenge, of course.
Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does part of your core business also involve mining silicon, crystalizing it, cutting the crystals into wafers, and then etching those wafers to make the chips your servers are built from? Somewhere, you're drawing the line between what you build in-house and what you outsource. Where to draw the line depends on many factors. There's definitely no "right" place, such as never using cloud resources.
Vertical integration is function of size. At scale even the small efficiency improvements can make big differences, Facebook run their own DCs and design some hardware too coz it probably makes sense at their scale.
Vertical integration is a function of size and other variables.
For example, I used to work for a solar power company that would install panels on the roofs of big box stores and then sell the power to the stores below grid prices. This company did not manufacture panels -- they bought them at market rate from various suppliers.
The company got acquired by a major silicon wafer manufacturer. One of the things this wafer company made were solar panels -- boom, vertical integration. What a win, right? Well, as it turned out, after about a year, their competitors were able to bring their panel prices down whereas the acquiring company moved a bit more slowly. Thus the wafer company became an albatross around the solar power company's neck. They had to use the parent company's panels, instead of their more cost-effective competitors, and ended up no longer being competitive in the market.
So vertical integration can and often does make sense, but it comes with a loss of agility, and sometimes being nimble is more important.
Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
But Google Cloud deprecation policies and other SLA's for generally available products.
They had an internal search box you could setup to crawl your intranet. They have shut this down and order all companies to turn it off. SLA does not matter
Are you referring to the Google Search Appliance?
Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree entirely. They don't launch products with the hope of having a long term product. They launch products to experiment and learn more about ad delivery. The core ad system is the main priority. As such, falling in love with any product that isnt their ad tech means understanding the product may disappear for no decent reason.
I would take it a step further and say that they don't launch products; they launch experiments. It's a giant Mechanical Turk setup.
And people happily store their 20 years of photo memories there...one day it will not be a custom inbox view or a voicemail transcript that will disappear.
Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users
#328I 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?
After being a keen Google user in the late 2000s to mid 2010s, I’ve been in on a process of extracting them from my life now their true creepy colours are on display. YouTube => Deleted Google plus => Deleted Gmail => Deleted, switched to Soverin [0], works great, less than $4 per month for 25gb email hosting Drive => Deleted, moved to iCloud Docs => Deleted, use iWork for docs and Bear [1] for text Search => Duck Du…
Great list, thanks for posting. I've been anti-Google for a long time and never was a fan. The only product of theirs that I find is indispensable is Youtube. They bought it, but it's by far the most useful and enjoyable product they keep going. Google Maps is close and it is the gold standard for maps, but I could get by without it for sure and just stick to Apple Maps.
I'm a Firefox/DDG/Dropbox+OneDrive/Outlook.com guy. No social media.
I just suffer with whatever battery loss I get on my laptops with Firefox. But I do think it draws less than Chrome. I tell people to just use native browsers that are already installed on their laptops for power/performance reasons, with a note that the only other browser that's customizable and powerful enough to be worth sacrificing battery efficiency for is Firefox. I love the features of Firefox and if it weren't so vastly customizable and superior to Edge/Safari I'd use and recommend native browsers only.
I do tend to prefer Apple and Microsoft over Google but that's a long held bias of mine. I didn't care for Google when they were popular with everyone in the early days of Chrome's release. Hated Google before it was cool, hipster Google hater.
Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users
#329I agree, although I doubt they care.
I also tried to switch to Gmail in preparation, and it's a lot worse IMO.
Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users
#330There is always so much vitriol on HN about these kinds of announcements. I've never understood why. Google presumably has lots of data and feedback from people using Inbox, and determined that it wasn't useful enough or widespread enough to justify ongoing investment. Why is this surprising or shocking? This happens all the time in commercial and open source software. The internet is great, but unfortunately has the…
> I've never understood why
Because if I got positive emotions from using inbox what is so unexpected about getting negative emotions when google kills it? Fuck them.