This means every time I look at a new Google product, I ask: If every Google product I use shut off at once, how bad would it be to add this one to the list? So Google Pay, for example, is a total nonstarter; in a situation where most of my communication methods suddenly break, simultaneously losing access to credit cards would be literally life threatening. Similarly, I could never recommend Google Cloud Platform to an employer; losing the ability to do system-administration work at the same time as losing access to gmail would just be too much to manage.
> my google play account with my apps, my google extension developer with my extensions, my google AdMob with all of my unpaid revenue, firebase, google analytics, and google search console...
I’d like to apply this algorithmic ban to Google employees’ private Google accounts so they too can experience the joy of getting punched in the face without recourse.
I “only” have my emails left at Google. Starting July they want to take my money for what they promised to be a free service forever. I actually look forward to migrating away from them so I find inner peace again.
Little did i know, they did nothing :)
Western governments need to start acting on behalf of the people. Break up big tech and bring the hammer down on companies that usurp a persons lifelong data archive and refuse to give them a copy.
I have Google Workspace Legacy accounts, so my family has stayed with Google for far to long. That’s ending this month. Even if it sucks and we lose some data, purchases, etc. right now, the long term benefit of abandoning Google is better for everyone IMO.
It's easy to imagine police using the same excuse as Google: "we can't reveal exactly what you did wrong, since that would compromise our methods to catch criminals". If it wasn't for the fact that we aren't used to that "just being the way it is" in that case, we would probably shrug and accept it, too.
Unless the failure rate is literally 0%, there should never be a permanent full ban.
Apply this to companies over a certain size.
There is perhaps the same in other juridictions (like California).
That said, I've never had a problem using it from the US.
Google unprofessionalism aside, the most reliable cloud storage in the world can't beat a solid local backup. Never ever keep your files in single copy, no matter who is the cloud storage provider; always keep a local backup, or to be more precise, the cloud storage should be one of the two backups, not the original.
Mirroring external mailboxes such as Gmail from Fastmail can be activated when creating a new account; so far it works really well.
Google's new motto since April 2018: Do the right thing. Be evil.
