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Do you really expect GMail to provide personal customer service to its ~176m [1] non-paying users? Don't mistake non-paying for no-profit. Those users don't p

by daten 16y ago

Do you really expect GMail to provide personal customer service to its ~176m [1] non-paying users? Don't mistake non-paying for no-profit. Those users don't pay cash but they do give google lots of personal data and ad-clicks that makes google money. I would personally rather pay a fee and keep my data private and not see ads. If google loses "non-paying" customers because of performance issues or outages that they don't know about because there's no effective way to contact them, they also lose money just like a company with paying customers.

nooneelse 16y ago
"I would personally rather pay a fee and keep my data private and not see ads." I thought that one could do that with a Premier Edition Google Apps account.
- PStamatiou 16y ago
  Yes they can. I have been on Google Apps Premier for 2 or 3 years now.
  - bigstorm 16y ago
    Yes although Apps Premier comes with a price, it has many other features including ad free mails. You get less spam too
thaumaturgy 16y ago
I put together my own mail server on Linode a while back, after getting frustrated with Gmail's ridiculously limited filtering and tagging. I use RoundCube webmail, Dovecot, Postfix, managesieve, SpamAssassin, and a few custom hacks. It works great. Gmail used to have the added annoyance of making Firefox unusably slow if it was open for hours at a time; I now can have my mailbox open for days at a time with no browser performance hit. I can make filters as simple or complex as I want. Gmail has now become my spamcatch.
- stef25 16y ago
  Isn't the appeal of Gmail its slick ajax interface and the fact that mails are presented as threads?
  - thaumaturgy 16y ago
    ...Both of which RoundCube does quite nicely. The threading in RoundCube isn't quite as good as Gmail, but it's plenty good enough for me.
    - drusenko 16y ago
      ah, yes, and when your mail server goes down for a couple hours? that's a lot of fun. i've managed my own mail servers from ~2000 to 2008, when it practically became a full time job. i use gmail primarily for (1) the spam filter and (2) not having to worry about downtime. [edit: and on another note, roundcube development is PAINFULLY slow...]
      - thaumaturgy 16y ago
        Once I got the basic configuration and initial stuff down, the mail server's uptime has been ... hmm. Pretty damn close to 100% I think. I think there was an outage a bit back, but that one was my fault. I dicked up one of the databases or something. On the flip side, I never have to worry about missing email. Like, for example, the time (yesterday) that I tried to send code samples from a WP exploit that did a neat job of turning the web server into an IRC-controlled zombie via a fun little Perl script. The person I was sending them to had a Gmail address. Guess who never received the files? (And wasn't notified, either...)
- buster 16y ago
  But then there are people that have to work a lot and don't want to care. Ironically, the main product i am working on is enterprise mail solutions. I could deploy somethign at home or in anotehr datacenter.. but even the time for the setup is too much time to bother with. So in the end, i use gmail for private stuff and our corporate mail system for business. If i'd have the time to setup the toolchain you mentioned including custom hacks, i'd rather go outside or meet friends, for sure. Or work on some other projects..

by daten 16y ago

nooneelse 16y ago

"I would personally rather pay a fee and keep my data private and not see ads." I thought that one could do that with a Premier Edition Google Apps account.

PStamatiou 16y ago
Yes they can. I have been on Google Apps Premier for 2 or 3 years now.
- bigstorm 16y ago
  Yes although Apps Premier comes with a price, it has many other features including ad free mails. You get less spam too

thaumaturgy 16y ago

I put together my own mail server on Linode a while back, after getting frustrated with Gmail's ridiculously limited filtering and tagging. I use RoundCube webmail, Dovecot, Postfix, managesieve, SpamAssassin, and a few custom hacks. It works great. Gmail used to have the added annoyance of making Firefox unusably slow if it was open for hours at a time; I now can have my mailbox open for days at a time with no browser performance hit. I can make filters as simple or complex as I want. Gmail has now become my spamcatch.

stef25 16y ago
Isn't the appeal of Gmail its slick ajax interface and the fact that mails are presented as threads?
- thaumaturgy 16y ago
  ...Both of which RoundCube does quite nicely. The threading in RoundCube isn't quite as good as Gmail, but it's plenty good enough for me.
  - drusenko 16y ago
    ah, yes, and when your mail server goes down for a couple hours? that's a lot of fun. i've managed my own mail servers from ~2000 to 2008, when it practically became a full time job. i use gmail primarily for (1) the spam filter and (2) not having to worry about downtime. [edit: and on another note, roundcube development is PAINFULLY slow...]
    - thaumaturgy 16y ago
      Once I got the basic configuration and initial stuff down, the mail server's uptime has been ... hmm. Pretty damn close to 100% I think. I think there was an outage a bit back, but that one was my fault. I dicked up one of the databases or something. On the flip side, I never have to worry about missing email. Like, for example, the time (yesterday) that I tried to send code samples from a WP exploit that did a neat job of turning the web server into an IRC-controlled zombie via a fun little Perl script. The person I was sending them to had a Gmail address. Guess who never received the files? (And wasn't notified, either...)
buster 16y ago
But then there are people that have to work a lot and don't want to care. Ironically, the main product i am working on is enterprise mail solutions. I could deploy somethign at home or in anotehr datacenter.. but even the time for the setup is too much time to bother with. So in the end, i use gmail for private stuff and our corporate mail system for business. If i'd have the time to setup the toolchain you mentioned including custom hacks, i'd rather go outside or meet friends, for sure. Or work on some other projects..