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So, you are not actively using a Google account? It is one thing to have alternatives, but to actually execute the switch to alternatives seems near impossible

So, you are not actively using a Google account? It is one thing to have alternatives, but to actually execute the switch to alternatives seems near impossible. Breaking away from Google is already hard, breaking away from Google + Facebook (which has your phone number on WhatsApp) seems impossible. Not to sound too personal, but I thought everyone pretty much gave in to Google already.

josteink 9y ago
Wrong assumption. There's loads of people out there without a Google-account.
- paradite 9y ago
  And those are the more savvy users who actually care about their privacy a lot. If I may draw another parallel: There are also loads of people out there who can migrate out of the system (China/Google) if they don't like. And those who stay with the system (China/Google) seems to be fine with the system knowing their identity.
  - josteink 9y ago
    Are you calling my old dad, with his yahoo account, or my other colleagues in marketing with live/hotmail accounts "tech savvy"? What a about my Hungarian relatives with freemail or humail? What about fastmail? People on HN are terrible with email. How on earth is it possible to think Gmail is the only option for email, a decentralized, standardized service? How ignorant do you have to be to make that assumption?
helloindia 9y ago
If one is not in android ecosystem, then they can live without a gmail account. No need to be a savvy user at all.
observation 9y ago
I doubt even a majority of HN has Facebook accounts and Gmail for email. A lot of us use services like Fastmail, Protonmail for email and simply do not use Facebook. Gmail is so bad it's not even usable for me in comparison to how it was several years ago. Changing your email account is easier than you think, especially if you already use Password Managers like most of HN will be doing. You can redirect email from Gmail to your new email address, and at your new email provider put a footer into your every sent email which states you've switched to this new email address. I advise backing up your email from Gmail using Thunderbird just in case, but personally I've never had to access the backup, it's really much easier than you imagine.
- paradite 9y ago
  Thanks for the thoughtful response. Actually I'm talking about Google account and services in general, not just gmail. Google account also exists as an IAM service for various Google branded products, such as YouTube, and a lot of other external services, which use Google account as the preferred or only authentication method. It is much harder to break those once you are locked in.
  - observation 9y ago
    Agree on Youtube, getting away from it is much harder because the expense of mass data storage causes a natural monopoly to form. I suspect it will ultimately be upended through a deeper change, likely with agent based computation.

josteink 9y ago

Wrong assumption. There's loads of people out there without a Google-account.

paradite 9y ago
And those are the more savvy users who actually care about their privacy a lot. If I may draw another parallel: There are also loads of people out there who can migrate out of the system (China/Google) if they don't like. And those who stay with the system (China/Google) seems to be fine with the system knowing their identity.
- josteink 9y ago
  Are you calling my old dad, with his yahoo account, or my other colleagues in marketing with live/hotmail accounts "tech savvy"? What a about my Hungarian relatives with freemail or humail? What about fastmail? People on HN are terrible with email. How on earth is it possible to think Gmail is the only option for email, a decentralized, standardized service? How ignorant do you have to be to make that assumption?

helloindia 9y ago

If one is not in android ecosystem, then they can live without a gmail account. No need to be a savvy user at all.

observation 9y ago

I doubt even a majority of HN has Facebook accounts and Gmail for email. A lot of us use services like Fastmail, Protonmail for email and simply do not use Facebook. Gmail is so bad it's not even usable for me in comparison to how it was several years ago. Changing your email account is easier than you think, especially if you already use Password Managers like most of HN will be doing. You can redirect email from Gmail to your new email address, and at your new email provider put a footer into your every sent email which states you've switched to this new email address. I advise backing up your email from Gmail using Thunderbird just in case, but personally I've never had to access the backup, it's really much easier than you imagine.

paradite 9y ago
Thanks for the thoughtful response. Actually I'm talking about Google account and services in general, not just gmail. Google account also exists as an IAM service for various Google branded products, such as YouTube, and a lot of other external services, which use Google account as the preferred or only authentication method. It is much harder to break those once you are locked in.
- observation 9y ago
  Agree on Youtube, getting away from it is much harder because the expense of mass data storage causes a natural monopoly to form. I suspect it will ultimately be upended through a deeper change, likely with agent based computation.