I switched to fastmail.com a few years ago. It's not expensive and so far seems to work quite well for me.
Google appears to be scaling up the ads it shows to Gmail users
41–50 of 271 posts
Re: Google appears to be scaling up the ads it shows to Gmail users
#42Maps, Photos, Drive will go after soon.
I just see Facebook somewhere. Ads everywhere even when people leaving it.
Re: Google appears to be scaling up the ads it shows to Gmail users
#43Google now seems deep into the enshittification [1] process. Of all the big tech companies, they seemed the most customer-friendly, the least constrained by the need to optimize their money hose. But I guess the economic logic of tying executive compensation to short-term share price simply overwhelmed other considerations. The stock must go up, so revenues must grow, so Google must monetize everything to the maximum…
Are we still getting surprised by this? I feel like I've read a version of your comment on posts like this for the past couple of years.
Re: Google appears to be scaling up the ads it shows to Gmail users
#44And who says it?
A site that first try to trick me into letting them sell my data for ads, then displays up to 8 ads at the same time on a screen (there are more if I scroll), then wants to install a constant advertising script into my computer (allow notifications popup) and when I wanted just to close this thing it advertised me their newsletter.
And they have courage to reproach others for adding advertisements to their product, lol
Re: Google appears to be scaling up the ads it shows to Gmail users
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Never gonna happen. If people get so upset that they start moving to other products, then we'll see MSFT and GOOG do what all belligerent companies do when they start losing eyeballs: Increase advertising on the remaining users until they, too, get fed up and leave, and eventually the companies wither and die away. Will that happen? Probably not, but it's more likely than either company realizing they're alienating t…
There are no other platforms though. Even Apple is cramming their apps with ads for their services. They’ve ad-walled me over 20 times in the last 18 months on the way to listen to my music with an Apple Music adwall. Just on my way to listen to MY mp3s.
> There are no other platforms though.
Sure there are. $5/month gets you email/contacts/calendar hosting at Fastmail (and several other similar alternatives). Linux desktops are healthier than ever and have no ads. (Including plenty of music players for playing your own MP3s!) There are countless Fediverse instances that won't advertise at you... there are plenty of options if you look beyond the big players.
Now, for phone OSes, your choices are more limited. GrapheneOS with F-Droid is alright for now, though I'd love to see mobile Linux get more usable again.
Re: Google appears to be scaling up the ads it shows to Gmail users
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
> tying executive compensation to short-term share price We won't get anything other than this unless Google decides to do a huge round of buybacks and go private. The spice must flow because only growth makes money for the people who actually own Google.
>We won't get anything other than this unless Google decides to do a huge round of buybacks and go private. The spice must flow because only growth makes money for the people who actually own Google. And after they go private why do you think they won't care about growth/money?
If you're public you must grow, if you're private you can choose when and how to grow based on what makes sense for the business. The only thing really pushing you is competitors and inflation. There are no shareholders/investors breathing down your neck for returns.
When you're private you can actually say, "you know what, I'm content where we are being filthy rich."
Re: Google appears to be scaling up the ads it shows to Gmail users
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are no other platforms though. Even Apple is cramming their apps with ads for their services. They’ve ad-walled me over 20 times in the last 18 months on the way to listen to my music with an Apple Music adwall. Just on my way to listen to MY mp3s.
> There are no other platforms though. Sure there are. $5/month gets you email/contacts/calendar hosting at Fastmail (and several other similar alternatives). Linux desktops are healthier than ever and have no ads. (Including plenty of music players for playing your own MP3s!) There are countless Fediverse instances that won't advertise at you... there are plenty of options if you look beyond the big players. Now, fo…
I opted for Posteo @ €12/yr
Re: Google appears to be scaling up the ads it shows to Gmail users
#48Google now seems deep into the enshittification [1] process. Of all the big tech companies, they seemed the most customer-friendly, the least constrained by the need to optimize their money hose. But I guess the economic logic of tying executive compensation to short-term share price simply overwhelmed other considerations. The stock must go up, so revenues must grow, so Google must monetize everything to the maximum…
Customer-friendly? Maybe if you've never required support or human engagement for any issue. If you have, Google is by far the worst among the big tech companies.
If you have Google Fi, it's surprising how good support it. Create a request and a real person calls you within 5 minutes to help out. They are actually helpful as well.
The best part is you don't go through 15 minutes of robo voice assistance debugging hell.
Re: Google appears to be scaling up the ads it shows to Gmail users
#49Just to be clear: Gmail is displaying ads for free use of Gmail.
If you pay for Gmail (Google Workspaces, previously known as G-Suite) then they do not serve ads.
Re: Google appears to be scaling up the ads it shows to Gmail users
#50I've been so happy moving my email to iCloud. It isn't perfect or anything, but it's nice having email that's just boring IMAP. Apple takes my $1 each month for custom domain support and 50GB of storage and I get their hide-my-email service.
The $1 also includes iCloud Private Relay. It’s among the best deals (non-open source) in big tech.