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> This really seems like it needs to be regulated in law. Or use backups. Don't go crying to the government when you can handle it yourself.

by nilved 10y ago

peeters 10y ago
It's not a question of backups. Even with no data loss, the cost of most people being shut out of their Google account is absurdly high. Missed texts. Missed calls. Missed emails. Can't log into third party sites. If Google wants to have a monopoly on all of that stuff, they need to be subject to regulation that compartmentalizes their services and what they can and can't do arbitrarily.
- nilved 10y ago
  They don't want a monopoly, you want them to. You opted in to it, and you only end up in such a horrible position when you make a series of horrible decisions. Missed texts and phone calls? How did you even get into the position where Google controls your telephony? Missed emails? Why are you using gmail.com? Third-party authentication? Did they not have the option to use e-mail or a username? You can't fix every problem by band-aiding regulation on top of it. Sometimes you need to step back and wonder how you got here, and solve that instead.
  - peeters 10y ago
    > They don't want a monopoly, you want them to. Of course they do. Every strategic decision the company has made over the last two decades is to try to secure a monopoly on your data. You make it sound like it's easy to run your own full stack of all web-connected applications. It's not. The cost is INSANELY high. So your real choice is whether to use one company, or dozens of individual companies for every individual service. The latter protects you against the risk of something like this happening. But it comes at a day-to-day expense which will far outweigh the prevented risk for 99.9% of people.
    - nilved 10y ago
      If your concern is data _loss_ as opposed to data _ownership_ you can still use Google all you want as long as you use it redundantly (backups, separate domain, &c.) What you're saying is more applicable to people who want Google not to see their data.

> This really seems like it needs to be regulated in law. Or use backups. Don't go crying to the government when you can handle it yourself.

by nilved 10y ago

> This really seems like it needs to be regulated in law. Or use backups. Don't go crying to the government when you can handle it yourself.

peeters 10y ago

It's not a question of backups. Even with no data loss, the cost of most people being shut out of their Google account is absurdly high. Missed texts. Missed calls. Missed emails. Can't log into third party sites. If Google wants to have a monopoly on all of that stuff, they need to be subject to regulation that compartmentalizes their services and what they can and can't do arbitrarily.

nilved 10y ago
They don't want a monopoly, you want them to. You opted in to it, and you only end up in such a horrible position when you make a series of horrible decisions. Missed texts and phone calls? How did you even get into the position where Google controls your telephony? Missed emails? Why are you using gmail.com? Third-party authentication? Did they not have the option to use e-mail or a username? You can't fix every problem by band-aiding regulation on top of it. Sometimes you need to step back and wonder how you got here, and solve that instead.
- peeters 10y ago
  > They don't want a monopoly, you want them to. Of course they do. Every strategic decision the company has made over the last two decades is to try to secure a monopoly on your data. You make it sound like it's easy to run your own full stack of all web-connected applications. It's not. The cost is INSANELY high. So your real choice is whether to use one company, or dozens of individual companies for every individual service. The latter protects you against the risk of something like this happening. But it comes at a day-to-day expense which will far outweigh the prevented risk for 99.9% of people.
  - nilved 10y ago
    If your concern is data _loss_ as opposed to data _ownership_ you can still use Google all you want as long as you use it redundantly (backups, separate domain, &c.) What you're saying is more applicable to people who want Google not to see their data.