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I'm tired of Google's business products

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: I'm tired of Google's business products

#31

Post by goopthink »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #3

Google is an advertising company. Their productivity apps exist for one reason --- privacy invasion/data collection --- in support of their advertising objectives. Using Google apps for anything other than advertising is like going to a medical doctor for a toothache. You might receive something that temporarily eases the pain but the root problem remains largely unsolved.

Google’s Ad Products have - over the last few years, in the pursuit of “smartness” —gotten progressively dumber and harder to use, making all sorts of bad and often unchangable decisions on your behalf, and having really awful interfaces for trying to make any sorts of edits and apply them anywhere. And I say this as a technical marketer. Facebook’s ads products are a godsend compared to the awful nonsense that is Google Ads.

Re: I'm tired of Google's business products

#32

Post by thisiscorrect »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #3

Google is an advertising company. Their productivity apps exist for one reason --- privacy invasion/data collection --- in support of their advertising objectives. Using Google apps for anything other than advertising is like going to a medical doctor for a toothache. You might receive something that temporarily eases the pain but the root problem remains largely unsolved.

Which of Google's productivity apps collect your data for ads? Can you provide some proof?

Re: I'm tired of Google's business products

#33

Post by fatnoah »

Cordivae wrote: post #29
fatnoah wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>All I ever wanted was my own Gmail domain. Who owns the domain here? I use a custom domain with Gmail Workspaces, but I own the domain, and therefore control the MX records. The only thing I'd lose in a switch is stored email messages, but there are ways to download those.

Yes. I own the domains. And if they go through with this I will move and leave Google's ecosystem entirely. It will be a huge pain in the ass trying to do it for my grandparents though.

Gotcha. Yeah, IT for the parents & grandparents is definitely a challenge for things like this.

Re: I'm tired of Google's business products

#34

Post by gumby »

Drive is incredible…ly terrible.

Our non-technical staff (and some good technical people too) are always losing track of where files are. They write a doc then can’t find it later.

The desktop tool (so you can use it like Dropbox) keeps getting confused and disconnecting on the Mac.

I’m also part of a scout troop that uses google to organize its activities. In the troop’s Drive I’ve found doctor’s patient records, the marketing plan for a major public company often mentioned on HN, and other documents clearly accidentally stored/shared with this group.

Re: I'm tired of Google's business products

#35

Post by Cordivae »

taylodl wrote: post #17

* > I've been trying to start a business lately, and as many people do, have chosen to rely on Google's suite of products.* Just a reminder, most businesses fail - so doing what many people do is not necessarily the best thing to do. Having said that, it's rather foolish to have your business depend on Google. They have repeatedly demonstrated they're not good business partners and the main thrust of their business i…

Exactly. They make major decisions, give you less than 3 months to completely change things you depend on. And you can't even get someone on the phone (or even email for god-sake) to complain to.

Re: I'm tired of Google's business products

#36

Post by sqlpipe »

pocketsand wrote: post #24

I created a small ad campaign to advertise a side project. The projects makes no money, has no plan for monetization, does not use passwords. The only personal data it collects is an email address. I bought $50 worth of ads using my credit card. My account was immediately suspended for suspicious payment. I appealed, noting the card was mine, and I bought the ads. The appeal was rejected. I have occasionally tried to…

"I've called Google to try to talk to them"...

Currently contemplating this, but am certain it will leave me with a feeling of "well, I'll never get that 30 minutes back"

Re: I'm tired of Google's business products

#38

Post by shadowgovt »

fatnoah wrote: post #33
Cordivae wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I own the domains. And if they go through with this I will move and leave Google's ecosystem entirely. It will be a huge pain in the ass trying to do it for my grandparents though.

Gotcha. Yeah, IT for the parents & grandparents is definitely a challenge for things like this.

It's a challenge for everybody. Having to put people who aren't computer savvy through it is just a reminder of what a pain in the ass it is... The fact that we can self-service doesn't make it less of an annoyance than we have to do something.

And at this point, the pattern is clear. Google Business products are free until they are not. Building them into your infrastructure is taking on technical debt that you will have to pay down in the future, either by actually buying the product when they decide it is no longer free or by switching to an alternative.

I still run into websites with a big API disabled rectangle where their Google maps integration used to be.

Re: I'm tired of Google's business products

#39

Post by thisiscorrect »

gumby wrote: post #34

Drive is incredible…ly terrible. Our non-technical staff (and some good technical people too) are always losing track of where files are. They write a doc then can’t find it later. The desktop tool (so you can use it like Dropbox) keeps getting confused and disconnecting on the Mac. I’m also part of a scout troop that uses google to organize its activities. In the troop’s Drive I’ve found doctor’s patient records, th…

I'm not making the trip. It sounds like you're saying users are moving files to the the wrong folders on their computers and the desktop tool respects that. What should the software do differently?

Re: I'm tired of Google's business products

#40

Post by ghaff »

gumby wrote: post #34

Drive is incredible…ly terrible. Our non-technical staff (and some good technical people too) are always losing track of where files are. They write a doc then can’t find it later. The desktop tool (so you can use it like Dropbox) keeps getting confused and disconnecting on the Mac. I’m also part of a scout troop that uses google to organize its activities. In the troop’s Drive I’ve found doctor’s patient records, th…

I can usually find the docs I've created pretty easily--but then I'm pretty good about sensibly filing things.

But finding random Shared with Me is pretty problematic especially if I don't know exactly what I'm looking for. And, of course, as you say, if you're sharing docs, it's pretty easy to share with someone you don't mean to. Of course, the same could be said with sending around docs on email.

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