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Why I Quit Using Google

kylepiira.com

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Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#11

Post by pugworthy »

HenryBemis wrote: post #6
abhisuri97 wrote: post #5

Wouldn't it be best for google to allow you to download a takeout of all your files in the case that your account is suspended?

"..best for google.." If google gave a crap they would put a phone number to that email so you can talk to a human and resolve any issue. From numerous conversations in HN and iRL, everyone who has a spat with the G-people is royally screwed. A true hostage. What you suggest would be great for the user. But why would google care for that? You broke their rules, you have to pay. Here, have some pain. I don't blame the…

> If google gave a crap they would put a phone number to that email so you can talk to a human and resolve any issue

Do you know how insanely hard that would be to staff and manage such an operations for a global corporation? It had a 1 BILLION MAU back in 2015.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#12

Post by close04 »

thatsenough wrote: post #4
telegrammae wrote: post #2

What's reasonable is if you want to avoid using Google services (for whatever reason), then you do not need to be fanatical about it. Move off gradually, one service at a time, and keep using some Google services, if you really must - why not?

Because that doesn't feed into the outrage machine and drive clicks.

The fact that a company is allowed to amass so much of your digital life but then lock you out with no recourse should cause outrage. It's no different than if your landlord, your bank, or the post office decided one day to lock you out and not even bother to give you an explanation, let alone to give you back your money and property.

We live in a world where services like the ones Google provides aren't just optional, they're critical for so many people. Some have less money in the bank or home than the value of their emails, contacts, media, and whatever else may be stored in Google's systems. Some of those things are priceless.

I agree that it's Google's right to refuse to have/keep you as a user/customer but they should be legally forced to give you back all of your data or at the very least give a generous notice period.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#13

Post by tomaszs »

The same goes for Facebook. My company uses a legimate Business Account to handle ads of our clients. Nothing shady there. Regular SMB ads. More or less a month ago i receive an email the whole account has been blocked due to some violations. Whole freaking account. Without any warnings. We had clear history. And this means essencially you can close your company if you run only FB ads because you can not create another ads account.

Eventually they recovered the account in 48 hours and wrote they are sorry.

But the thing is it does not solve the problem. You can loose your business just by a system mistake in a second.

And it seems like there is always a way out. But there is not always. Really, does a company of a size of a Facebook or Google care about one person or one small business?

I had a Instagram account for 10 years with my photos and fought 6 months to get it back after hacker takeover. Believe me i have tried everything to get it back. And no, there was no way. There is no number you can call to fix it.

Its just so dangerous to have such single points of failure nowadays like Facebook or Google. Both for business and personal use. Its just great to hear a person who was able to remove it.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#14

Post by oth001 »

I've had a problem with trying to sign into my approved AdSense account the past few weeks. "We encountered an error. An engineer is looking into the issue." No way to contact them. I'm done with Google as well. I'm never going to use a service that doesn't provide a way to contact support.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#15

Post by awb »

xenator wrote: post #7

I love that other companies have sustainable alternatives to Google services. But these articles looks more like hype train and doesn’t really add any new value for me. You are not building something new switching from one big corp to another small company that want to become another big company next day. Probably I’m getting old but I remember times when Google doesn’t exists. We had software for files, messages, ca…

> You are not building something new switching from one big corp to another small company that want to become another big company next day.

This. At some point you have to trust someone.

Even if you're off Google you're leaking data with your phone, credit card, smart TV, ISP, genetic testing, etc.

I know privacy isn't all or nothing but with Email the party I'm communicating with already has a copy of the communication that they could forward to anyone or save with any other provider.

I'd say ethics might be a larger reason to switch.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#16

Post by zamadatix »

xenator wrote: post #7

I love that other companies have sustainable alternatives to Google services. But these articles looks more like hype train and doesn’t really add any new value for me. You are not building something new switching from one big corp to another small company that want to become another big company next day. Probably I’m getting old but I remember times when Google doesn’t exists. We had software for files, messages, ca…

You ask why to things the article already started talking about. What do you think about what the article has already said about these things?

Also note most of the things they have moved to are self hosted. For instance Cloudron could close tomorrow and they would still own their email address. Seems quite different than moving from a big company to a small company that wants to be a big company.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#17

Post by zamadatix »

pugworthy wrote: post #11
HenryBemis wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"..best for google.." If google gave a crap they would put a phone number to that email so you can talk to a human and resolve any issue. From numerous conversations in HN and iRL, everyone who has a spat with the G-people is royally screwed. A true hostage. What you suggest would be great for the user. But why would google care for that? You broke their rules, you have to pay. Here, have some pain. I don't blame the…

> If google gave a crap they would put a phone number to that email so you can talk to a human and resolve any issue Do you know how insanely hard that would be to staff and manage such an operations for a global corporation? It had a 1 BILLION MAU back in 2015.

Google One gets you 1 year of access to human support for a year so apparently not that hard. I'm sure many people would rather pay that amount just to get their ban reviewed rather than lose their existing email, chat, photos, files, and phone number. The 3 other ~1 trillion dollar tech companies all have customer support without issue.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#18

Post by xref »

pugworthy wrote: post #11
HenryBemis wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"..best for google.." If google gave a crap they would put a phone number to that email so you can talk to a human and resolve any issue. From numerous conversations in HN and iRL, everyone who has a spat with the G-people is royally screwed. A true hostage. What you suggest would be great for the user. But why would google care for that? You broke their rules, you have to pay. Here, have some pain. I don't blame the…

> If google gave a crap they would put a phone number to that email so you can talk to a human and resolve any issue Do you know how insanely hard that would be to staff and manage such an operations for a global corporation? It had a 1 BILLION MAU back in 2015.

This is Google, Facebook et. all’s argument for not doing any content moderation, customer support, etc: “it’s hard”

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#19

Post by swiftcoder »

pugworthy wrote: post #11
HenryBemis wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"..best for google.." If google gave a crap they would put a phone number to that email so you can talk to a human and resolve any issue. From numerous conversations in HN and iRL, everyone who has a spat with the G-people is royally screwed. A true hostage. What you suggest would be great for the user. But why would google care for that? You broke their rules, you have to pay. Here, have some pain. I don't blame the…

> If google gave a crap they would put a phone number to that email so you can talk to a human and resolve any issue Do you know how insanely hard that would be to staff and manage such an operations for a global corporation? It had a 1 BILLION MAU back in 2015.

Somehow Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple all manage to maintain real human tech support at FAANG scale. Yet the online-first tech companies can't seem to achieve the same. I wonder why that is?

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#20

Post by xref »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #8
danemorgan wrote: post #3

I get the email thing. And I've actually been moving critical accounts away from my personal Gmail for a while now. As for the rest, the services I use, I use them because they work better than any of the other options I have tried. I'll admit that that amounts to as substantial number of services.

I have never understood using a gmail.com account for anything important. It’s always been inexpensive enough to buy a domain and have an email address associated with it. I also don’t understand startup founders who tie personal emails into a business email account. Keep a separate email.

For one, a personal domain is less secure than a gmail.com domain. There have been quite a few targeted hacks, like Mat Honan or any number of crypto-holders, where a personal domain was socially engineered to be transferred to a new registrar (or password reset on existing registrar) where the attacker controls the MX records, thus your email, thus your password resets.

It’s much harder to transfer gmail.com, office.com, etc

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