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In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

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Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#71

Post by sorenjan »

nodelessness wrote: post #56
sorenjan wrote: post #40

I never bothered with Inbox because I figured Google would cancel it some day. I understands user's disappointment, but it can't be a surprise. This is what Google does. It's amazing to me that a company with close to 90 000 employees and that attracts top talent can't find a way to support their services longer than a few years. How much does a handfull of indian engineers and space in their own datacenter cost?

Are Indian engineers your favourite coolies that will do the dirty work of keeping your systems running after you've lost interest in them ?

Isn't that were US companies are outsourcing to? Why would Google use expensive Silicon Valley-engineers to do bugfixes on a product they'd rather cancel? Are you denying there's a price difference?

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#72

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

sorenjan wrote: post #40

I never bothered with Inbox because I figured Google would cancel it some day. I understands user's disappointment, but it can't be a surprise. This is what Google does. It's amazing to me that a company with close to 90 000 employees and that attracts top talent can't find a way to support their services longer than a few years. How much does a handfull of indian engineers and space in their own datacenter cost?

I'm sure they could support all new services for a decade if they wanted to. But that's a costly commitment to make, to the point that exploratory projects like Inbox might never make it out of planning in the first place.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#73

Post by bklaasen »

omosubi wrote: post #16

I used to be a Google fan boy but am starting to dislike them more and more. This, they killed off reader and the creepy data collection they do is why I've started to look into alternatives for their products - anyone have any good suggestions?

You can do it bit by bit. Start by switching to Firefox on desktop and mobile (if you're an Android user). Install Firefox Multi-Account Containers to sandbox Google and other surveillance capitalism products. Switch to another provider for your email, contacts and calendars. I chose Fastmail - it's adequate. The best thing I can say about it is that it has a suite comparable to Google mail, calendar and contacts and there's no evidence it's tracking me. I use Thunderbird on the desktop and the Fastmail app on mobile. I've moved all my contacts into Fastmail.

Use hooktube (and Hooktube Redirector) on desktop and mobile and NewPipe on mobile. Favour apps from F-Droid. Install uBlock Origin on desktop and mobile.

My next moves are to get my calendars out of Google (my wife and I have several calendars we've shared for years) and into Fastmail. I need to get a couple of years' worth of photos out of Google Photos and back into Flickr. (They probably have a brighter future now that they've been rescued from oblivion by Smugmug - though Ipernity is probably another decent option for a classic Flickr experience.) `rclone` will probably be a lifesaver there.

I need to find a solution for hosted files and docs; I've not found Nextcloud to be convincing. I use B2 for offsite backups. I've yet to install a pi-hole, though I already have a pi doing DHCP and name resolution for my home network. I often use sshuttle if I want to become opaque to my ISP. I have a PIA VPN account but it's consistently terrible - could be my ISP mucking with the traffic.

It's going to be a multi-month project. I look at what I've done and have yet to do to evade constant casual surveillance and I strike myself as sounding like a tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist - but I'm not. I'm just a rational citizen, attempting to recover for myself some of the human rights I took for granted a decade ago.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#74

Post by pinewurst »

joering2 wrote: post #61
TimTheTinker wrote: post #10

I don't think Google cares whether its users are "passionate" or not. They've reached market saturation, so further spread of their products through word-of-mouth (via passionate users and such) isn't a goal at this time. With regard to their Internet service products, their goal seem to be to monetize the user base effectively, while avoiding wasting funds on unnecessary developer time. To that end, many of their pr…

Precisely. I can be as pissed at Google as they come, ready to pick up my pitchfork, but at the end of the month when I spent $120,000 on adwords and made $280,000 in profit as a return, I will gladly tattoo Google logo on my chest. The scary part is they will sunset gmail eventually. I know from someone inside “L team” that founders hate how much headache gmail brings for such little return. Initially started at the…

They still scan your Gmails though? I'd think the information they gather this way would still be worth something even if they don't "personalize" their own ads with it.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#75

Post by mattkevan »

omosubi wrote: post #16

I used to be a Google fan boy but am starting to dislike them more and more. This, they killed off reader and the creepy data collection they do is why I've started to look into alternatives for their products - anyone have any good suggestions?

After being a keen Google user in the late 2000s to mid 2010s, I’ve been in on a process of extracting them from my life now their true creepy colours are on display.

YouTube => Deleted

Google plus => Deleted

Gmail => Deleted, switched to Soverin [0], works great, less than $4 per month for 25gb email hosting

Drive => Deleted, moved to iCloud

Docs => Deleted, use iWork for docs and Bear [1] for text

Search => Duck Duck Go, getting better all the time

Chrome => Safari, excellent battery life, good tracking protection

Google Photos => Deleted, moved to Apple photos

Next project is to move my website off of Google Analytics.

I’d love to fully switch to Apple Maps as it’s getting better but don’t know if I fully trust it yet. Google Maps is the gold standard.

[0] https://www.soverin.net

[1] https://bear.app

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#77

Post by wybiral »

hamstercat wrote: post #65
paublyrne wrote: post #5

The new look Gmail has performed very poorly for me. Hanging for extended periods while changing views, and during search. I'm not sure why a UI refresh would have such an effect but I've been avoiding switching because of this

I have to agree with this. I have upgraded (or rather it upgraded for me a couple of weeks ago), and now everything I do is delayed by a couple of seconds. Archive an email? I can't close the tab otherwise the browser tells me I'm going to lose data. Send an email? Ditto. I wouldn't mind a better UI, but beside the added lag I don't find there's anything better or different than before.

Same here. It's like it refuses to remove the [X new] flag until I've seen something multiple times and the whole UI feels sluggish and unresponsive.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#78

Post by GW150914 »

eropple wrote: post #49
andrewstuart wrote: post #7

Google's shutdown of products and APIs seems to have led to critical level of trust loss amongst developers and influencers. It's time for Google to either fix this or get out of providing services and APIs to developers. Google doesn't seem to put any weight at all on the outcry every time its shutters another service/API. The trust must be restored. Google doesn't seem to understand that when they shut service X, t…

> Google's shutdown of products and APIs seems to have led to critical level of trust loss amongst developers and influencers. Some companies have to care what developers think. (Few, to be frank; developers overestimate their importance.) Many companies have to care what "influencers" think. But not all, and Google is not part of that "most". Google doesn't have to give a shit because everyone uses Google. They are…

You don’t need goodwill until you need it, and then it’s almost impossible to garner. How does that saying go? When you’re on top of the world you can do no wrong, when you’re down you can do no right? A lot of giant companies have to learn this the hard way, probably due to institutional inertia, apathy, lack of foresight, and the reality that today’s C-levels will probably be gone before that shit hits the fan.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#79

Post by komali2 »

pinewurst wrote: post #74
joering2 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely. I can be as pissed at Google as they come, ready to pick up my pitchfork, but at the end of the month when I spent $120,000 on adwords and made $280,000 in profit as a return, I will gladly tattoo Google logo on my chest. The scary part is they will sunset gmail eventually. I know from someone inside “L team” that founders hate how much headache gmail brings for such little return. Initially started at the…

They still scan your Gmails though? I'd think the information they gather this way would still be worth something even if they don't "personalize" their own ads with it.

I thought they "wouldn't go there," hence the hullabaloo when Yahoo "went there?"

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#80

Post by saagarjha »

joering2 wrote: post #61
TimTheTinker wrote: post #10

I don't think Google cares whether its users are "passionate" or not. They've reached market saturation, so further spread of their products through word-of-mouth (via passionate users and such) isn't a goal at this time. With regard to their Internet service products, their goal seem to be to monetize the user base effectively, while avoiding wasting funds on unnecessary developer time. To that end, many of their pr…

Precisely. I can be as pissed at Google as they come, ready to pick up my pitchfork, but at the end of the month when I spent $120,000 on adwords and made $280,000 in profit as a return, I will gladly tattoo Google logo on my chest. The scary part is they will sunset gmail eventually. I know from someone inside “L team” that founders hate how much headache gmail brings for such little return. Initially started at the…

More than a billion people use Gmail, and it continues to serve as the gateway for many people to the Google ecosystem. I, for one, doubt they would sunset it any time soon.
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