Live data from Hacker News

Google banned me from Google Voice

dannyguo.com

111–120 of 152 posts

Re: Google banned me from Google Voice

#111
post #13

He should be more mad, in my opinion. It’s ludicrous that Google can simply kill your phone number and nobody bats an eye. It’s such a fundamental part of life at this point. At the minimum, users should get a “We are no longer willing to provide you service. You have two weeks before service will end. Please switch your number to another provider if you want to keep it.” Other than non-payment, are there other phone…

At some point people were laughing at me because I'm using Yahoo as my main email address, but honestly, I'd rather have two "super important" accounts (Yahoo mail and Android gmail) rather than just one that gets me banned from everything in case AI decides it wants to fuck up my day. I'm wondering what can I realistically do to protect myself from Yahoo screwing me over. Not gonna lie, setting up my own email domai…

Register a domain and throw some $ at migadu and it's pretty straight forward. Super cheap too if you don't really send or receive a ton of email traffic. (Ie. Their micro plan)

Re: Google banned me from Google Voice

#112
post #13

He should be more mad, in my opinion. It’s ludicrous that Google can simply kill your phone number and nobody bats an eye. It’s such a fundamental part of life at this point. At the minimum, users should get a “We are no longer willing to provide you service. You have two weeks before service will end. Please switch your number to another provider if you want to keep it.” Other than non-payment, are there other phone…

It's so absurd that we used to complain about customer service from phone companies etc. and fled them for tech companies whose business models are defined by being scaled so high that customer service is impossible for them to offer.

The complaint was about a corporation not holding up its promises to customers or looking to defraud them of pennies, dollars or in this case access.

The issue isn't phone companies vs tech companies. It was always about support and the belief that tech companies would be transparent, supportive, fast, 'user-first'.

Governments, bodies outside of corporations are the only thing that can hold corporations to task. We've been very busy de-toothing them.

Re: Google banned me from Google Voice

#113
post #58

Life pro tip (I believe that everyone should do this): - Buy a domain and set up a custom email that represents you like firstname@firstlast.com - you own this domain and email address and no company, with the exception of your registrar maybe, has any control over it or authority to take it from you. - Set up a dummy gmail/proton/whatever acct with a random address - this address will never be used or exposed public…

This is great until you lose control of your domain because you forgot to pay it or whatever. What then? Whoever owns your domain owns your email address. It's a good solution but it's got its faults too.

Might as well buy a 10 year discounted domain registration if it's your name. You'll be using it in 10 years anyway and it will be a good investment with the discount and inflation.

Re: Google banned me from Google Voice

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point people were laughing at me because I'm using Yahoo as my main email address, but honestly, I'd rather have two "super important" accounts (Yahoo mail and Android gmail) rather than just one that gets me banned from everything in case AI decides it wants to fuck up my day. I'm wondering what can I realistically do to protect myself from Yahoo screwing me over. Not gonna lie, setting up my own email domai…

Register a domain and throw some $ at migadu and it's pretty straight forward. Super cheap too if you don't really send or receive a ton of email traffic. (Ie. Their micro plan)

given their email limits i feel that they are a bit expensive. there are plenty of services for $3-5 per month that have better limits (except the unlimited addresses and domains, that's really good, if you need it). and if i look at their micro plan, 200 incoming mails per day is not enough for me alone given all the mailing lists that i am on, as is a limit of 20 out. that's hardly practical.

a cheaper alternative is purelymail. their advanced pricing charges you per email and for used storage, but 1000/100 emails per day will only cost you $35 a year depending on the sizes of the emails you receive.

Re: Google banned me from Google Voice

#115
post #13

He should be more mad, in my opinion. It’s ludicrous that Google can simply kill your phone number and nobody bats an eye. It’s such a fundamental part of life at this point. At the minimum, users should get a “We are no longer willing to provide you service. You have two weeks before service will end. Please switch your number to another provider if you want to keep it.” Other than non-payment, are there other phone…

I had a site with 15+ years of stats and one day I needed something from it and the google analytics site says that it doesn't exist anymore, because... they deleted it. They sent some emails about it that some regulation or whatever bullshit, but that's it. No answer from me since I wasn't checking that mail...puff, your virtual belongings just got eradicated/nuked. Fn cesspool of a company.

Re: Google banned me from Google Voice

#116
post #58

Life pro tip (I believe that everyone should do this): - Buy a domain and set up a custom email that represents you like firstname@firstlast.com - you own this domain and email address and no company, with the exception of your registrar maybe, has any control over it or authority to take it from you. - Set up a dummy gmail/proton/whatever acct with a random address - this address will never be used or exposed public…

This is great until you lose control of your domain because you forgot to pay it or whatever. What then? Whoever owns your domain owns your email address. It's a good solution but it's got its faults too.

> This is great until you lose control of your domain because you forgot to pay it or whatever.

There's an easy way to address this that a lot of people overlook. Seriously, I'm not being snarky or sarcastic in what I'm about to say. A lot of people seem to really not considered this. Use a calendar.

Every major desktop OS includes calendar software, I believe, as does every major mobile OS.

Create a calendar on one of your devices and when you do something like buy a domain, but an annual recurring event named something like "renew domain" that will be due a couple weeks for the domain expires.

Get in the habit of taking a look at the calendar every day. Most also allow you to assign alerts to events to further ensure you won't miss it.

Re: Google banned me from Google Voice

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is great until you lose control of your domain because you forgot to pay it or whatever. What then? Whoever owns your domain owns your email address. It's a good solution but it's got its faults too.

Might as well buy a 10 year discounted domain registration if it's your name. You'll be using it in 10 years anyway and it will be a good investment with the discount and inflation.

Exactly. My business owns dozens of mission-critical domains. Their registration is all fully paid through the early-2030s.

Re: Google banned me from Google Voice

#118
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is great until you lose control of your domain because you forgot to pay it or whatever. What then? Whoever owns your domain owns your email address. It's a good solution but it's got its faults too.

> This is great until you lose control of your domain because you forgot to pay it or whatever. There's an easy way to address this that a lot of people overlook. Seriously, I'm not being snarky or sarcastic in what I'm about to say. A lot of people seem to really not considered this. Use a calendar. Every major desktop OS includes calendar software, I believe, as does every major mobile OS. Create a calendar on one…

As I implied elsewhere, how does anyone manage to keep their house? I mean what if you forget to pay your mortgage?

How does anyone keep their job? What if you forget to go to/do your work?

How does anyone keep the electricity flowing/put food in the refrigerator/keep gas in the gas tank of their vehicle/maintain their internet access/etc./etc./etc.

If something is important to someone, they'll take whatever steps are necessary to keep/maintain it.

A calendar isn't a bad idea, but I assume GP has ways of making sure they do all those other things. What's different about a domain registration?

Re: Google banned me from Google Voice

#119
post #27

Not to address the author of the article specifically, but only all readers generally.... I would suggest that the moment you chose to have a critical dependency on someone else's services, it becomes incumbent on you to have a disaster recovery plan should that service suddenly become unavailable to you. How formal or intense such a plan is may depend on if you're an individual or a small/mid-sized business that's t…

You are right that this is wise, but it's too much to ask the average user to do. At least in the US, most people lack the technical literacy to do anything but depend on big tech. What we really need is legislation to regulate big tech services as the utilities they really are.

[deleted]

Re: Google banned me from Google Voice

#120

This guy is lucky they only banned his Google Voice account. Years ago I lost an entire Yahoo! account with paid hosting for my side gig at the time along with years emails because I apparently broke their ToS by asking a question deemed inappropriate on Yahoo! Answers.

> inappropriate on Yahoo! Answers. How can ANY question have been too inappropriate for Yahoo! Answers? That was a true treasure of the web RIP Am I Gregnant?

https://youtu.be/EShUeudtaFg?si=9WLkm-9ERWPyF51z
Post reply on HN