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The Case Against Gmail (2020)

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Re: The Case Against Gmail (2020)

#61

Post by criddell »

jdoss wrote: post #32

I agree with this post so hard. Email is the foundation for people's life online. In fact I am working on building a better self hosted mail platform in my free time because I believe in having the freedom to move your email to wherever you choose. Running your own mail server has a bad stigma around it that doesn't have to be true. I understand it is not a task for everyone, but it doesn't have to this don't bother…

When you die, do you have plans for your email server? Being able to give your family long term access to your email account by sharing credentials is a nice benefit of hosted email. They don’t have to worry about keeping a server running or paying anybody for access to it.

Re: The Case Against Gmail (2020)

#62

Post by diggernet »

rakoo wrote: post #45
vundercind wrote: post #2

Uuuugh that reminds me that one of these days I’m gonna have to set aside the four or so hours it’ll take to get most of my important things pointing at my owned-domain email address, so I don’t lose everything if Google’s ban hammer automatically decides the almost-nothing I do on any Google site violates policy and I lose it. We need a moved-permanently redirect for emails :-/

> We need a moved-permanently redirect for emails :-/ Most mail providers have an automatic forward system, and/or an automatic reply. There is more than enough for most of the biggest names.

Don't worry, Google is working on that.

The demise of email forwarding is getting closer

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40045069

Re: The Case Against Gmail (2020)

#63

Post by vundercind »

rakoo wrote: post #45
vundercind wrote: post #2

Uuuugh that reminds me that one of these days I’m gonna have to set aside the four or so hours it’ll take to get most of my important things pointing at my owned-domain email address, so I don’t lose everything if Google’s ban hammer automatically decides the almost-nothing I do on any Google site violates policy and I lose it. We need a moved-permanently redirect for emails :-/

> We need a moved-permanently redirect for emails :-/ Most mail providers have an automatic forward system, and/or an automatic reply. There is more than enough for most of the biggest names.

That doesn’t help with the nightmare scenario of Google’s systems deciding I’m a threat because I never post YouTube comments or something, and shutting off the account. That’s the thing I’m worried about.

Re: The Case Against Gmail (2020)

#64

Post by pyrale »

jsnell wrote: post #27
pyrale wrote: post #7

The case against gmail is very simple for me: - I need to own the domain name to make sure mail is sent to my property. - Gmail for is a paid service for custome domain names. - Why would I pay for an advertising service?

Why do you think you'd be paying for an advertising service in this scenario? - Gmail doesn't show ads to Workspace users. - Your emails aren't used for ad targeting, whether it's a Workspace account or a normal Gmail one.

Company promises are temporary, data is forever. And gmail is an ad service, having some paid clients doesn’t change that.

Re: The Case Against Gmail (2020)

#65

Post by [deleted] »

iagooar wrote: post #18

How much safer is "owning" your domain? An anecdote: A few years ago I used to have my own domain. Then one day my credit card expired, the new one did not work and my account got frozen. I fixed it, then I forgot to actually extend the domain and it stopped working. Of course, no incoming email, no access to my old mail, etc. Fortunately I could buy the domain again after a couple of weeks of time, so it did not end…

[deleted]

Re: The Case Against Gmail (2020)

#66

Post by jsnell »

pyrale wrote: post #64
jsnell wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think you'd be paying for an advertising service in this scenario? - Gmail doesn't show ads to Workspace users. - Your emails aren't used for ad targeting, whether it's a Workspace account or a normal Gmail one.

Company promises are temporary, data is forever. And gmail is an ad service, having some paid clients doesn’t change that.

Your claim was that you're not going to "pay for an ad service". If you're proposing to be a paying client, that population of paid clients seems like the most relevant possible population. Yet you're dismissing it. How is a service that displays no ads and collects no data for use for ad targeting an "ad service"?

Re: The Case Against Gmail (2020)

#67

Post by rakoo »

vundercind wrote: post #63
rakoo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We need a moved-permanently redirect for emails :-/ Most mail providers have an automatic forward system, and/or an automatic reply. There is more than enough for most of the biggest names.

That doesn’t help with the nightmare scenario of Google’s systems deciding I’m a threat because I never post YouTube comments or something, and shutting off the account. That’s the thing I’m worried about.

Yeah, that's why you need your own domain and a proper mail provider

Re: The Case Against Gmail (2020)

#68

Post by page_fault »

iagooar wrote: post #18

How much safer is "owning" your domain? An anecdote: A few years ago I used to have my own domain. Then one day my credit card expired, the new one did not work and my account got frozen. I fixed it, then I forgot to actually extend the domain and it stopped working. Of course, no incoming email, no access to my old mail, etc. Fortunately I could buy the domain again after a couple of weeks of time, so it did not end…

Does nobody know you can rent domains for ten years in advance? This argument comes up every single time. Just extend it for ten years (or better yet, nine years so you can always migrate) and then set up a calendar event to remind yourself to add another year every year. You'll have a looooong ass grace period to deal with payment issues.

You can use Cloudflare to top up your account to the max (because they sell domains at cost), and then move to a registrar of your choice to save a bit of money.

When you die, your domain will not be reacquired for a decade, giving your accounts on various sites (or even sites themselves) time to expire. 2FA everywhere is a must, obviously.

Re: The Case Against Gmail (2020)

#69

Post by bitnasty »

andrewla wrote: post #38

The idea that Google gets value from gmail user data is simply false. The pushback from when Google first tried to do ads on gmail was enough to kill the idea permanently. Gmail is a legacy of Old Google, like Maps -- it serves no profit motive, just engineers building something cool for everyone with some sort of flimsy pretext of "it keeps users in our ecosystem" tacked on to it. Google now does have a premium-ish…

There ARE ads in gmail

Re: The Case Against Gmail (2020)

#70

Post by pyrale »

jsnell wrote: post #66
pyrale wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Company promises are temporary, data is forever. And gmail is an ad service, having some paid clients doesn’t change that.

Your claim was that you're not going to "pay for an ad service". If you're proposing to be a paying client, that population of paid clients seems like the most relevant possible population. Yet you're dismissing it. How is a service that displays no ads and collects no data for use for ad targeting an "ad service"?

Is my data processed by a separate service? Are the execs at gmail-for-paid-clients different? Do I have any recourse if they decide to update some policy document like they did in the past in their other business lines?

Frankly, it's just that much easier for me to feel secure when I get that service from people whose main business is email and not advertising.

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