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Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

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Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#191

Post by Jommi »

latexr wrote: post #157
rglullis wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you know why there are still some people that still take "web3" seriously. It's the only system where you are not at the mercy of some external entity to be always benevolent. Seriously, ENS and Handshake alone should be enough of a reason to silence all of those who keep repeating "but blockchain has no real world applications".

> It's the only system where you are not at the mercy of some external entity to be always benevolent. Until the owners of the network run away after extracting all the value they can, or they decide to fork it because it’s in their best interest, or they end it because it’s not as profitable as they wanted, or your exchange decides to halt trading so they don’t lose money, or, or, or.

you're confusing web3 with crypto here. This is a very common mistake.

There is no centralized "owner". You can become part of the network just like anyone else. No single party can do anything you describe.

You also seem to being centralized exchanges to the discussion - they have no relevance here. Trading can be done in a decentralized fashion as well.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#192

Post by detaro »

judge2020 wrote: post #189
rglullis wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Ethereum has no "owners". ENS is fully decentralized. There is no "they" to fork anything. - There is no need to have exchanges involved in that. - ENS has a token, but is not required for people who just want to buy a domain (they use ETH) Quit the senseless FUD

> There is no "they" to fork anything. What? ENS is BSD licensed. Anyone can ‘fork’ it at any time.

That's clearly not what forking means in this context. You can't make the existing "instance" run different code, and it's users don't have to care if you run your own modified copy.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#193

Post by T0Bi »

judge2020 wrote: post #189
rglullis wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Ethereum has no "owners". ENS is fully decentralized. There is no "they" to fork anything. - There is no need to have exchanges involved in that. - ENS has a token, but is not required for people who just want to buy a domain (they use ETH) Quit the senseless FUD

> There is no "they" to fork anything. What? ENS is BSD licensed. Anyone can ‘fork’ it at any time.

> What? ENS is BSD licensed. Anyone can ‘fork’ it at any time.

Forking a blockchain and forking a repository are completely different things. The comment was talking about the former.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#194

Post by tailspin2019 »

SXX wrote: post #77
yuvalr1 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds bad. Is there anything we can do about it? What is the most reliable domain registrar?

So far Gandi was posted as reliable company and over last 10 years I had no issues with them. One good feature is that you dont have to be owner to renew domain name registered with them. So in case you temporary lose access to your account you can still pay for domains. They also allow to keep credit balance for auto renew. I really didnt have much of issues to talk about so no idea how good is their support at solv…

FWIW I just had a support ticket open with them in the last week and they were very responsive and helpful.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#195

Post by rglullis »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #183
yieldcrv wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

anti-fragility, permission to fail, rapid iteration basically risk isn't controversial, and it rapidly iterates to more and more resilient systems

"The problem is you can lose access to your emails at any time." "Use web3 - then when you lose access to all your emails it's the system working as intended!"

That is the kind of tired, cheap, wrong argument that it so easily debunked, but "skeptics" still keep using.

Let me see if you really interested in a healthy debate or just proud of your ignorance: do you know that when using web3 for domains, you'd still be running the email servers that use the traditional protocols? You won't be losing any of your messages. You'd still be authenticating against a traditional server.

There is nothing about using web3 for domains that would lead you to lost access to your data.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#196

Post by judge2020 »

wodenokoto wrote: post #170
dav43 wrote: post #158

Unpopular on HN, but I just don't see a problem with Google having my email, for what they provide me. Almost unlimited uptime, global redundancy, best search experience, storage all for free. I'm ok with the trade off for now. Its just not worth the hassle.

Isn't the point of the article that as a non-user of gmail you can't opt out of giving google all your email? It's nice that you get a service for providing your emails to google, but what do I get?

I mean this is a fact of life for pretty much everything. You can’t opt out of USD if you want to participate in the global economy. You can’t opt out of barcode scanners if you want to purchase groceries. People will augment open standards with proprietary, 100% dependent processes either because they’re easier to work with or they same you money, and often that means customers in turn must interact with those proprietary systems to get anything done.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#197

Post by tmalsburg2 »

presentation wrote: post #171
wodenokoto wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the point of the article that as a non-user of gmail you can't opt out of giving google all your email? It's nice that you get a service for providing your emails to google, but what do I get?

Idk the ability to reliably communicate with a large segment of the world population?

I exchange e-mails with people who don't use Gmail and it's pretty reliable. Let's not pretend that Google is the only company who knows how to run a mail server. In fact I have more problems with e-mails coming from Gmail accounts (low quality text/pain, broken threads, etc.).

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#198

Post by jasec57322 »

arglebargle123 wrote: post #126
cube00 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using your own domain also has advantages in terms of being able to use aliases for different websites so (when, not if) an address gets leaked you can > /dev/null it. If you're cheap like me you can give family members their own subdomain so everyone can have aliases for the cost of a single domain. It's sad to think back on myself nearly two decades ago when Gmail first launched as invitation service and I thought…

Not defending big G here in the slightest but you can do that with Gmail aliases too: Someaddr+alias@gmail resolves to Someaddr@gmail.

Most providers now block Gmail addresses containing . or +

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#199

Post by simias »

rglullis wrote: post #130
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it known that domain registrars are better than GMail in this regard? Not asking sarcastically, but I had my domain taken over by registrar(not released to public, just registrar took control of it) after few week of notice when auto renew failed to charge my credit card, and my credit card was working fine elsewhere. Also many registrar like Namecheap cancelled subscription for Russian customers during this invas…

Now you know why there are still some people that still take "web3" seriously. It's the only system where you are not at the mercy of some external entity to be always benevolent. Seriously, ENS and Handshake alone should be enough of a reason to silence all of those who keep repeating "but blockchain has no real world applications".

And that's why web3 frustrates me to no end. Decentralized services were common in the "old" internet, web3 just takes than and adds a layer of ponzi and speculation on top of them.

If bittorent was invented today you'd have to buy into some pyramid scheme to use it.

Beyond that having a trusted third party does suck for some things, but at least it means that I have a recourse if something goes wrong. With cryptocrap I'm one hack away from losing my life savings, my domain, the history of all my transactions and even my monkey pictures!

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#200

Post by judge2020 »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #166
esskay wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a hypothetical (although as of right now admittedly VERY unlikely scenario): It's 2035. Google has continued a worldwide decline with the invention of several highly accurate AI drive search systems deeply integrated into technology. Their video streaming service, which started declinging in the mis 2020s has just closed down following years of losses. To try and regain its financial footing Alphabet has decid…

I would still 100% go with Gmail. I avoid 15 years of headaches and cost and only have to spend a few days of work transferring emails to a new provider? Sign me up.

Not to mention, it seems Gmail is the overwhelming choice for pretty much everyone; over 75% of users on my service have a Gmail email. If Google did actually sunset Gmail I’m sure every website would implement an email change system pretty quick to make sure their own users aren’t left out on in the cold, unable to log in post-shutdown.
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