5 ms·

I just had an image of myself posting the headline: "Google discontinues Gmail and Search" as a way to kickstart a conversation about our reliance on services

I just had an image of myself posting the headline: "Google discontinues Gmail and Search" as a way to kickstart a conversation about our reliance on services, and whether we can blame companies for not subsidizing services we like and so on. But then I realized it would just go sideways into a discussion about click bait and appropriate headlines, so I am posting it as a comment.

techman9 10y ago
It'll be around the same time as Amazon discontinues EC2
- startupdiscuss 10y ago
  Yes, it won't happen. But suppose, for whatever reason, they decided gmail was not economical and was not bringing in enough money. Do you think they are obligated to keep it around because our lives are on there? What is their obligation, morally, and what is just a "nice" thing to do?
  - thaumasiotes 10y ago
    > Do you think they are obligated to keep it around because our lives are on there? > What is their obligation, morally, and what is just a "nice" thing to do? I'd say their moral obligation, in a practical sense, is to let people extract their email from gmail before it's taken down. As of the discontinuing of Google Reader, that seems to be something they understand.
- chronicx0 10y ago
  So in the next 5 years. Maybe sooner, considering HN's disappointment with their pricing, service offerings, and recent outages.
james_pm 10y ago
The Gmail part would go something like: Google discontinues Gmail and Google Inbox is the replacement! Then a year later, Google intros Mail from Google, a new webmail client that is like Inbox, but has more of the classic email interface UX that users expect. A year later, they announce Inbox is going away and everyone should move to Mail from Google, which they have rebranded "Gmail".
- scrollaway 10y ago
  I am reminded of the scene with the Slurm Queen in Futurama talking about "reintroducing Slurm Classic", as a jab on Coke. Realistically, if Google discontinued Gmail, people would move to other email providers. There's plenty of big ones. BTW: Want to avoid being caught in that eventuality, but don't want to stop using Gmail? Buy yourself a personal domain name (for your last name or some such) on https://www.gandi.net/ https://www.gandi.net/ and set up a redirect to your @gmail.com address. Your email is now john@smith instead of johnsmith@gmail. Congratulations, it looks a thousand times more professional, and you have it for life; if gmail dies, you can move providers without changing your email.
  - SomewhatLikely 10y ago
    Except it doesn't look more professional because you could only get smithfamilyemails.com or something equally unmemorable.
    - ReverseCold 10y ago
      3 letter non .com domains are your friend, plenty of those left for cheap
      - H4CK3RM4N 10y ago
        I really like $LASTNAME.xyz
      - rrix2 10y ago
        then all those signup forms with bad regular expressions can ruin your afternoon. I maintain an obscure .com only because the various gTLDs i could use regularly fail these naive validations. Some sites dont even properly handle ccTLDs
  - JD557 10y ago
    >and set up a redirect to your @gmail.com address. What do you recommend for this? I've been wanting to do this for some time, but that means I either need to: * Use GMail for work, which does not seem tailored for personal used (it's paid, I can't easilly find the price and it seems a bit odd to use Google solution to avoid problems with Google) * Send all mails to my personal server and setup a redirect there to GMail (which forces me to make sure that my server is always up, so I might as well use my own mail server) Is there a better solution? I wish there was some way to define e-mail alias at the DNS level.
yitchelle 10y ago
When Google Talk is discontinued, folks will gravitate to the next IM message like WhatsApp, Facebook messenger or even Twitter DM. Gmail, well there are other client to use. Search, umm, what can we do here? DuckGoGo?
- startupdiscuss 10y ago
  I agree with you. Do you think Google has a moral responsibility to provide us with tools and time to make the transition? And, how good do the tools have to be? Just a text dump is okay, or should you be able to give it your credentials and it can do the transfer? And then who decides how many services it should make easy? Are we being responsible now by not thinking about it?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- wykydtron 10y ago
  A lot of my friends that are friends with me on FB for some reason prefer DMing me on Instagram... Such a weird trend, but it's honestly a thing amongst our group. Either that or Snapchat group chats.
  - vocatus_gate 10y ago
    Same here, weirdly enough. In order of most messages exchanged per service, in my friend circles it goes: 1. WhatsApp 2. GroupMe 3. Instagram DM 4. SMS 5. FB Messenger 6. Wickr
- Nav_Panel 10y ago
  Twitter DM is bad. Messages don't appear "immediately" so you often end up with overlapping streams of conversation. The Android app's DM interface is so slow (it freezes for a long half-second every other word) that it's almost impossible to use (thankfully the mobile site works well enough). The best tactic if you're forced to use Twitter DM for an extended or even semi-real-time conversation is to move to a different IM client.

techman9 10y ago

It'll be around the same time as Amazon discontinues EC2

startupdiscuss 10y ago
Yes, it won't happen. But suppose, for whatever reason, they decided gmail was not economical and was not bringing in enough money. Do you think they are obligated to keep it around because our lives are on there? What is their obligation, morally, and what is just a "nice" thing to do?
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
  > Do you think they are obligated to keep it around because our lives are on there? > What is their obligation, morally, and what is just a "nice" thing to do? I'd say their moral obligation, in a practical sense, is to let people extract their email from gmail before it's taken down. As of the discontinuing of Google Reader, that seems to be something they understand.
chronicx0 10y ago
So in the next 5 years. Maybe sooner, considering HN's disappointment with their pricing, service offerings, and recent outages.

james_pm 10y ago

The Gmail part would go something like: Google discontinues Gmail and Google Inbox is the replacement! Then a year later, Google intros Mail from Google, a new webmail client that is like Inbox, but has more of the classic email interface UX that users expect. A year later, they announce Inbox is going away and everyone should move to Mail from Google, which they have rebranded "Gmail".

scrollaway 10y ago
I am reminded of the scene with the Slurm Queen in Futurama talking about "reintroducing Slurm Classic", as a jab on Coke. Realistically, if Google discontinued Gmail, people would move to other email providers. There's plenty of big ones. BTW: Want to avoid being caught in that eventuality, but don't want to stop using Gmail? Buy yourself a personal domain name (for your last name or some such) on https://www.gandi.net/ https://www.gandi.net/ and set up a redirect to your @gmail.com address. Your email is now john@smith instead of johnsmith@gmail. Congratulations, it looks a thousand times more professional, and you have it for life; if gmail dies, you can move providers without changing your email.
- SomewhatLikely 10y ago
  Except it doesn't look more professional because you could only get smithfamilyemails.com or something equally unmemorable.
  - ReverseCold 10y ago
    3 letter non .com domains are your friend, plenty of those left for cheap
    - H4CK3RM4N 10y ago
      I really like $LASTNAME.xyz
    - rrix2 10y ago
      then all those signup forms with bad regular expressions can ruin your afternoon. I maintain an obscure .com only because the various gTLDs i could use regularly fail these naive validations. Some sites dont even properly handle ccTLDs
- JD557 10y ago
  >and set up a redirect to your @gmail.com address. What do you recommend for this? I've been wanting to do this for some time, but that means I either need to: * Use GMail for work, which does not seem tailored for personal used (it's paid, I can't easilly find the price and it seems a bit odd to use Google solution to avoid problems with Google) * Send all mails to my personal server and setup a redirect there to GMail (which forces me to make sure that my server is always up, so I might as well use my own mail server) Is there a better solution? I wish there was some way to define e-mail alias at the DNS level.

yitchelle 10y ago

When Google Talk is discontinued, folks will gravitate to the next IM message like WhatsApp, Facebook messenger or even Twitter DM. Gmail, well there are other client to use. Search, umm, what can we do here? DuckGoGo?

startupdiscuss 10y ago
I agree with you. Do you think Google has a moral responsibility to provide us with tools and time to make the transition? And, how good do the tools have to be? Just a text dump is okay, or should you be able to give it your credentials and it can do the transfer? And then who decides how many services it should make easy? Are we being responsible now by not thinking about it?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
wykydtron 10y ago
A lot of my friends that are friends with me on FB for some reason prefer DMing me on Instagram... Such a weird trend, but it's honestly a thing amongst our group. Either that or Snapchat group chats.
- vocatus_gate 10y ago
  Same here, weirdly enough. In order of most messages exchanged per service, in my friend circles it goes: 1. WhatsApp 2. GroupMe 3. Instagram DM 4. SMS 5. FB Messenger 6. Wickr
Nav_Panel 10y ago
Twitter DM is bad. Messages don't appear "immediately" so you often end up with overlapping streams of conversation. The Android app's DM interface is so slow (it freezes for a long half-second every other word) that it's almost impossible to use (thankfully the mobile site works well enough). The best tactic if you're forced to use Twitter DM for an extended or even semi-real-time conversation is to move to a different IM client.