Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why I Quit Using Google

kylepiira.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 177 posts

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#81

Post by creato »

ravenstine wrote: post #65
jvagner wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of this article is to switch from one Google for a lot of services to a disparate group of providers for same services... if one of the service providers goes away, or is no longer palatable, only the service they provide needs to be relocated. Google can suspend your account and the 20-30 things you depend on them can go away (or, at least, be unavailable in a customized fashion based on your own data). Th…

To make matters worse, Google isn't known for their good customer service.

This is often repeated, and I believe it... but on the other hand, I've been using google services pretty heavily for over a decade, including some paid services, and I've never wanted customer service from google over all that time. Precisely the thing I like about google services is that their shit works and I don't need help from them to use it.

I suppose there's a risk of account suspension as mentioned above, but I still feel that risk is very low for me, my perception of these incidents that make noise on social media/HN is there is at least semi-shady shenanigans involved that trip spam/fraud/etc. alarms. I don't push those kinds of buttons, and neither do the vast majority of people, so I think this is a non-factor for most.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#82

Post by wolco »

judge2020 wrote: post #77
Mistri wrote: post #39

Has anyone else had experience with getting their Google account suspended? I literally use it for everything in my life, and without it I would probably lose access to a lot. I would change away from Google in a heartbeat but it just seems like too much effort if I can avoid getting my account suspended in the first place. If anyone has gotten their account suspended, what was it for and how can I avoid it?

The ones I know of are: - saying you're under 13 on YouTube (probably elsewhere as well) - TOS violations that malware performed using your account (eg. using your google session to share malware using drive) - Using drive to share or store copyrighted content - spam, eg via gmail

The one that caught a few was the not using real name on google+ ban.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#83

Post by paul7986 »

freshbagels wrote: post #75
paul7986 wrote: post #37

I quit using their search due to their sudden lack of ethics in the last few years. As well as my own disgusting experience I had doing business with them (treated me like garbage when invited to demo my tech. All their competitors I met with around same time were professional/respectful; deal or no deal) and then more so other stories detailing they do the same to others. Upon seeing that I was like wow my experienc…

> treated me like garbage when invited to demo my tech Do tell this story.

See the first comment in which I detail my experience with Google ATAP which mirrors the OP's story. She demoed her invention in an interview with them & they patented it without her knowledge/consent.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18566929

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#84

Post by paul7986 »

paul7986 wrote: post #83
freshbagels wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> treated me like garbage when invited to demo my tech Do tell this story.

See the first comment in which I detail my experience with Google ATAP which mirrors the OP's story. She demoed her invention in an interview with them & they patented it without her knowledge/consent. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18566929

Some other examples of Google (Google X even) stealing from the little guy/girl inventors & researchers...

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/inventor-says-go...

https://www.theverge.com/2015/2/17/8048779/google-x-eli-atti...

https://twitter.com/ahandvanish/status/1072953071179874304

I've spoken with some of these people and hear there are many more examples yet those people put it behind them or don't want to come out against the biggest tech company. That's too bad as for too long in history those in power and position have stolen from the rightful creators.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#85

Post by Mistri »

beowulfey wrote: post #57
Mistri wrote: post #39

Has anyone else had experience with getting their Google account suspended? I literally use it for everything in my life, and without it I would probably lose access to a lot. I would change away from Google in a heartbeat but it just seems like too much effort if I can avoid getting my account suspended in the first place. If anyone has gotten their account suspended, what was it for and how can I avoid it?

Most times people get suspended for doing things that unsurprisingly go against the ToS. If you’re not developing software with googles API or anything a normal, everyday user doesn’t do you are probably fine. Of course it can still happen by random chance thanks to their algorithm going screwy but it’s not likely and if you’re still concerned Id consider at least starting the process.

I have an IoT device that pings the YouTube API every few days using my personal Google account API key, should I be concerned?

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#86

Post by Mistri »

faitswulff wrote: post #72
buran77 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an understatement. Google's customer service is legendary in the sense that everyone's heard of it but nobody has actually been able to "see" it. But having bad customer service is just bad service, confiscating users' data really not unlike theft.

Google's customer service is definitely quirky. You have to write up your issue somewhere and then submit it to this strange orange 1990s-looking website. Then they prioritize tickets with input from random strangers on the internet before they can be seen by someone with enough authority to help you. But generally if you can get into the top 30 issues or so, someone will help you.

What "strange orange website" are you talking about? I thought Google customer service was a myth — would love to know where I can go if I have an issue in the future.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#87

Post by pmalynin »

Mistri wrote: post #86
faitswulff wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's customer service is definitely quirky. You have to write up your issue somewhere and then submit it to this strange orange 1990s-looking website. Then they prioritize tickets with input from random strangers on the internet before they can be seen by someone with enough authority to help you. But generally if you can get into the top 30 issues or so, someone will help you.

What "strange orange website" are you talking about? I thought Google customer service was a myth — would love to know where I can go if I have an issue in the future.

He's talking about HN.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#88

Post by spicyramen »

While I read other opinions about this article not bringing anything new that we already know, as an Enterprise user this reminds me that the people running Google Cloud is the same that comes from this consumer world or new grads with 0 Enterprise experience, which believe their product is perfect and user is wrong. We just completed an evaluation of AWS, Azure and GCP and our leadership raised this concern...which came true when opening GCP account and support was not as responsive as AWS, or Azure. AWS and Azure I even had real people calling us and contact us to understand our use case...I know GCP is bring more people from Oracle and other companies which can help them change this, in the mean time, we still will.invest in AWS, Azure and IBM

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#89

Post by mapgrep »

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…

Five of his switches were to nextcloud, which is self hosted and open source. One was to self hosted email. Many of the others were things like web search, browser, etc, where it’s hard to avoid a company.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#90

Post by Mistri »

pmalynin wrote: post #87
Mistri wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What "strange orange website" are you talking about? I thought Google customer service was a myth — would love to know where I can go if I have an issue in the future.

He's talking about HN.

Ah, thought it was some reference to the old Blogger design. facepalm
Post reply on HN