This would really be the ultimate fuck you to everyone if they did this. I sort of wish they would so we'd all stop giving them all our personal data.
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2024
473 points (97.0% liked)
Technology
63009 readers
2410 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Google getting rid of gmail would have to be hands down one of the biggest internet shakeups since its inception. Gmail has been the de facto free email service for almost two decades now. They have like a 53% market share of emails in the U.S.
load more comments
(7 replies)
I mean... I don't expect them to scrap GMail, but their reassurance means nothing. IIRC they said the same thing about Stadia.
load more comments
(5 replies)
Why would they voluntarily lose access to all my personal information?
They have enough to train an AI version of you and already predict your actions. Tracking real you is just boring now.
For the time being the compute required to simulate me is more expensive than tracking the real me.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Yeah, I don't believe you though
Google ditching Gmail would be so many people ditching Google.
Of course it is. e-mail is well established and very widespread for both personal and corporate use, Google would never abandon this service which is actually a great source of collecting personal data from users and non-users and therefore a source of revenue for them
I just now created a Proton mail account just minutes before seeing this. I think I'm glad I did.
I've been thinking about de-googling myself for some time now. After being with them since they created the Gmail service in the early 2000s, I practically have my whole adult life on Google. I've been using drive and photos as well for as long as it has existed. It's going to be a lot of work to sort through all of this data and start over on a new service.
I don't trust Google anymore over anything. Whether it's privacy (though I was pretty naive to think I had any in the first place) or their ability to keep a service up long enough for anyone to commit.
It's a shame because they started as a really nice company with their do no evil motto with great services and then everything went to shit. Even their killer feature, the search engine, has become complete shit.
I agree, but just a counterpoint...
Back in the day, after Hotmail and Yahoo! email but before Gmail, people started becoming really skeptical of emails from @xyz.net and started treating anything that didn't come from a major email provider as "spam."
I've kept my old gmail accounts around for "spam" and "work" respectively because despite people (finally) waking up to the privacy issues of Gmail, I cannot trust that emails with a @protonmail.com address won't be viewed skeptically by people recieving the email. Especially in regards to jobs. Unless you're in Cybersecurity and taking privacy seriously is your professional obligation, you're not going to run into tons of people who view ProtonMail very favorably.
De-googling is good, but don't leave yourself stranded and ignored by people because you had the audacity to use a different fucking service.
I don’t think that’s really much of a concern. I can’t imagine any world where a proton.me email will cause you any issues. I’ve had mine for years now, in fact on my resume and job applications I used my own domain’s email addresses and I’ve never experienced a problem. What you’re saying isn’t entirely impossible but it’s definitely not a problem you’re very likely to run into. You’re not likely to run into a single person that cares about your proton email much less one that views it disfavorably.
*Indian government: hold my lassie
https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/16/india-may-block-proton-mail/?guccounter=1
All it takes is that some services you use have mail hosted in India, and your emails might never reach.
load more comments
(6 replies)
Good counterpoint, and to add, Gmail itself is more than happy to throw any email into spam if it isn't from a major provider. I had this happen with my own domain email, and even after telling Gmail the email is legit, it still spam filters it.
Plus, guess what email provider HR often uses but shouldn't... That domain isn't Gmail but you better believe their boss paid the 6 dollars a head to get them a gsuite portal with Gmail Spam filters.
Does proton mail allow me to use custom domain names?
It's a paid option afaik
I'd wager most people who don't think about cyber security even look at the sender email address these days.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
Gmail is the gateway to their entire product portfolio; no way they’d kill it.
You are awfully confident about a company that kills things like a Russian dictator. I think what perhaps you mean is there's no way they'd kill it now. If they wanted to push users to some different type of platform they would certainly entertain the idea.
All it takes is one MBA with little foresight in the wrong position - the Gmail team is all expense (server hosting, labor), and no revenue; that's the "Ads" and "Drive/One/Business" teams.
The MBA. The only graduate degree you can get by attending class 3 days a month.
How some of these MBA programs can be considered a “masters” degree is an insult to people who actually had to spend years on 40-70hour a week graduate programs.
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
Howeeeeverrrr...
load more comments
(1 replies)
Of course it is. I know Google scraps a lot of things, but Gmail is for the most part liked and, far more importantly to Google, is an absolute treasure trove of personalised, easily parsable data, yet nowhere near as costly to maintain as, say, YouTube.
The fact that after making search, an email provider was their next big project, shows how serious they are about it.
With the terms of service for their “anti spam” and “productivity auto-sorting” features, they must gather SO much data about people by reading their emails - there’s no way they’d turn that off lol
Ugh, I've gotta switch from Gmail, any good email recommendations?
Proton mail is the peak email service money can buy (it's also avilable for free but i suggest paying)
load more comments
(8 replies)
load more comments
(4 replies)
I dunno Google has a cancelation tick so like i wouldn't be that surprised
No way will they cancel gmail. Google is using Gmail to train Gemini and power their Ad business. It might be a free email service in terms of not having a monetary cost, but you are paying for it with your data.
I would imagine Gmail is the primary reason people create an account with Google.
Yeah that and youtube I'd think