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I agree with your statements. ...However, to me it feels like its not so much that google killed off access to email as if it was a separate product...Rather,
by mxuribe 10y ago
I agree with your statements.
...However, to me it feels like its not so much that google killed off access to email as if it was a separate product...Rather, the physical device that google sells (and its associated platform a la Play store) are dependent on an identity mechanism...And the identity mechanism was what google was trying to shut down...It so happens of course that the identity mechanism that google chose to use (and has chosen to use for their android-based phones) is one's gmail address. THIS begs the question, if there was no such dependency (like one's gmail address), could google have exerted such power in shutting down these people's access? I'll admit I've traditionally been a fan of android phones...but this just struck me as way too much power, and scary.
Yeah, i might still need a semi-"throw away" google/gmail account to use my phone, etc. But as far as one of my "identity mechanisms", I'm starting to look at alternatives such as fastmail.com (which I just started a trial account with) for my main email. If anyone can suggest other alternatives - for quality (non-free) mail providers beyond just fastmail - I'm all ears.
- Senji 10y agoThe "identity mechanism" is actually your "Google account", gmail and the other google accounts used to be separate. But some one had the bright idea to force G+ on everyone by forcing them to merge all accounts, thus drawing audience from gmail and youtube. A really swell move. If google wanted to they could provide oauth like identity only service.
- mxuribe 10y agoYep, agreed; i could not have said this better myself! +1
- Ph0X 10y agoGoogle isn't just Gmail and Youtube anymore though. Maybe it was 5-10 years ago, but now there are dozens of products. Music, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Android. All of those require an account. You're basically implying that they should have a separate account for every one of their services, which makes absolutely no sense... Then, back when there are just two things, merging them into one was maybe not so good of a decision, but at this point, having a single account makes much more sense from a user experience point of view.
- Senji 10y agoI could theoretically register a separate account for any one of those. The thing is. I should be given the option of not connecting all of those. Separation of concerns.
- marssaxman 10y agoPerhaps it makes sense for Google to have one account system for all their services, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea for people trying to use those services to have them all linked together. It's kinda creepy, honestly, and it really makes me reluctant to use any of Google's services.