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Why I Quit Using Google

kylepiira.com

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121–130 of 177 posts

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#121

Post by xorand »

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…

> There is life outside of Google, and always was.

I had a collection of animations related to lambda calculus and alife on g+. Well, now is back online and moreover it is better, because I can add the option to remake these animations live, with js.

http://imar.ro/~mbuliga/collection.html

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#122

Post by Havoc »

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?

>Has anyone else had experience with getting their Google account suspended?

No but this is why I opted for own domain + paid g-suite. Just so that I can take my toys elsewhere if needed

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#123

Post by Havoc »

xwowsersx wrote: post #91

I have a Google One subscription so I pay Google for storage. Google could suspend my account and I'd have no recourse whatsoever? I'd have no way of getting my 10s of thousands of photos back?

Correct. Though I suspect the threshold for wrong-doing on paid accounts is probably a bit higher.

There is probably some form of recourse available, but knowing google you'll be talking to bots.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#124

Post by Semaphor »

xwowsersx wrote: post #92
Semaphor wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use fastmail with my own domain, so it’s always service@domain.tld. I only need to create aliases if I have to write them so the from/sender is correct. And I love how fast their webmail is compared to the slowness of gmail.

I too use it with my own domain. I don't get what you mean you only create aliases if you "have to write them". Can you elaborate?

Sorry, "when I have to write an outgoing email to that service"

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#125

Post by HenryBemis »

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.

Your knowledge of Controls in conjunction with Operations needs readjustments. If you place a drastic control (e.g. a Bank with 20mil customers has 24/7 anti-fraud call center) such as a bank blocking your card, the bank makes sure that it won't cripple you and has someone that can talk to you 24/7. That costs. Banks make the decision to make this work, at a certain cost.

Apparently Google can disrupt the service, and leave you hanging.

Controls (block bank card, suspend Google account) are enforced with with a specific impact in mind and a specific mitigating factors.

I am not saying that "banks care". I am saying that banks give .... while Google doesn't.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#126

Post by Mistri »

Havoc wrote: post #122
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?

>Has anyone else had experience with getting their Google account suspended? No but this is why I opted for own domain + paid g-suite. Just so that I can take my toys elsewhere if needed

Are you immune to the TOS if you're paying for G Suite?

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#127

Post by danemorgan »

SanchoPanda wrote: post #28
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 think the key here is you have tried the other options, and importantly - you clearly know how to set those other services up if need be. For many if not most people, that would be entering the wild unknown.

Fair enough.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#128

Post by est31 »

creato wrote: post #81
ravenstine wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, bu…

> this is a non-factor for most.

That's precisely why they are getting away with it. But once you get targeted by them, there is no way out.

If you hire one bad person with a banned account, it can happen that all Google accounts of the entire company are being banned, including your company's apps on Google Play, etc.

On Youtube, even famous people like cgp grey got into issues with Google which claimed that cgp grey was impersonating himself.

The core issue is that you can't have online spaces be free of rule enforcement, but the same time, in most if not all places, rules are enforced quite unfarily and without due process. For individuals this can mean social isolation, but for companies it can mean the end. There were some stories about this here on hn.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#129

Post by loh »

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?

This is what I've done over the past few years and it was much easier than I thought. Although, I was never too deep into Google's ecosystem to begin with. The only thing that really remains for me now is the occasional YouTube video (I don't even use an account for that anymore), and Chrome extensions.

For most people, I'd imagine "degoogling" seems pretty daunting at first, but if you do it gradually, you'll have rid yourself of Google before you know it. You'll also be supporting a better future for everyone. I don't mean that in an anti-Google way. I mean it in a pro-indie-dev (or small company) way and a pro-decentralized way, the way the internet is supposed to be.

Competition is always a good thing, in the context of goods and services, at least.

I think it's much better in the long term if we support businesses that specialize in doing one thing and doing it extremely well.

It may even be reasonable to think of businesses (companies) like you would well-architected software, where businesses that do one thing well are like small modules designed for a specific purpose, simple and predictable, easy to replace with something better if needed, without affecting much else in your life... while Google is like a monstrous spaghetti codebase with too many entangled dependencies, where changing a single thing has the potential to adversely affect many other things in your life.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#130

Post by rapnie »

dredmorbius wrote: post #46
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?

Several times, several different accounts. Fortunately Google is (or more accurately, was) simply a convenience for me. I have not yet fully deactivated the several Gmail accounts I have still standing, though those are largely inactive, and most are strictly associated with specific nyms I'd created (one notably after a primary nym account was suspended). The best way to avoid having your Google account be suspended…

I like to self-host too, and there is a huge amount of awesome selfhosted [0] software to be had.

Only problem is, you have to be willing to become a moderately good sysadmin and spend your time doing the chores to keep your systems up-to-date. This takes considerable amount of time. Dropping the ball once, and you may find yourself hacked (I had this recently when being slow in updating a nginx reverse proxy).

[0] https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted

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