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I think this is the money quote: “That same day I opened a second GMail account so I could have access to services like an email account if need be, [...]” So

I think this is the money quote: “That same day I opened a second GMail account so I could have access to services like an email account if need be, [...]” So, this journalist is in the middle of a horrible experience with Gmail and responds by ... opening another Gmail account, because basically realistically imagining email as something other than Gmail is far too much of a stretch in most people’s minds.

bmon 9y ago
But a Google account is not just email. It's also drive, calendar, and so on. There's a lot of time spent becoming familiar with those services, and to up and switch that entire suite would take a massive amount of relearning. Under the same circumstances as the author, I think I'd be back to Google. Remember, other services have their own issues as well.
- proactivesvcs 9y ago
  Having read the article, I start to wonder whether GMail is a service for Google, run by the user, where Alphabet are given invaluable personal information about a person, which they can then correlate with their other services in order to build a detailed mine of data about that person. In the course of this transaction the user may be permitted to read the emails that belong to Alphabet.
- BrandoElFollito 9y ago
  This is very much true. I built an ecosystem around Google because they work fine (usually). Rebuilding this for, say, Microsoft would be a tremendous effort.
WhyNotHugo 9y ago
This happens all over the place -- for some reason, the majority of the people won't learn. They'll tell you horror stories about how they lost a lot of work (or even money!) because a provider never gave them support, yet, go back to that same provider. A group of acquaintances had a Facebook group where they shared research and documents. It got deleted and they lost everything. Thrice. I suggested they used something else for document storage each time, but was just ignored or shooed off. The root cause of the problem is kinda beyond me -- but it's clear that people are unwilling to learn from experience when it comes to these things, and that these free services will continue to behave as they do because there's no downside to doing so.
- proactivesvcs 9y ago
  My sister had her broadband slammed (taken over by an ISP without any request or permission whatsoever) which left her with an unreliable and slower service. She stayed with them. For about three years the router they sent her would kick off the fifth-oldest DHCP lease and the ISP kept refusing to replace it. It's a truly fascinating psychological effect.
- nerflad 9y ago
  It's "who moved my cheese". People will violently resist changing their routines.
wyclif 9y ago
Worse than that, if we take those words at face value (and that person works in journalism), they apparently don't even know that email != gmail.
rocqua 9y ago
I'd love to switch away from gmail, but their 'important mail' function is essentially unique to them, and I love it. Sadly, this seems like a system that can't really be self-hosted. It requires data.
- Godel_unicode 9y ago
  If you have Gmail you have a fantastic training set of important and not important email pre-labeled for you to try learning that model for yourself.
jwilk 9y ago
What alternatives to GMail do you recommend?
- whiddershins 9y ago
  Honestly I think the answer to your question is: giant fail by the tech community, because to my knowledge there isn’t anything actually comparable, free or paid.
  - DashRattlesnake 9y ago
    Fastmail certainly is comparable.
- DashRattlesnake 9y ago
  https://www.fastmail.com/ https://www.fastmail.com/ It costs $5/month if you want to use your own domain. I've pretty much stopped using Gmail, etc. and switched totally to them.
  - jftuga 9y ago
    How is their calendar?
    - DashRattlesnake 9y ago
      I haven't used it as much, but it seems just as good for single-person use. It's WebDAV IIRC. I haven't tried to use any "shared calendar" features.
  - whiddershins 9y ago
    Do you find their web interface as good as Gmail?
    - DashRattlesnake 9y ago
      Yes, I do. The only thing I miss is tagging/archiving. Fastmail uses a traditional folder paradigm, and archiving only moves the message to a special archive folder. Their login 2FA options are as good as Gmails, and I like their mail-rules better (though you have to drop into "power users" mode more than I'd like).

bmon 9y ago

But a Google account is not just email. It's also drive, calendar, and so on. There's a lot of time spent becoming familiar with those services, and to up and switch that entire suite would take a massive amount of relearning. Under the same circumstances as the author, I think I'd be back to Google. Remember, other services have their own issues as well.

proactivesvcs 9y ago
Having read the article, I start to wonder whether GMail is a service for Google, run by the user, where Alphabet are given invaluable personal information about a person, which they can then correlate with their other services in order to build a detailed mine of data about that person. In the course of this transaction the user may be permitted to read the emails that belong to Alphabet.
BrandoElFollito 9y ago
This is very much true. I built an ecosystem around Google because they work fine (usually). Rebuilding this for, say, Microsoft would be a tremendous effort.

WhyNotHugo 9y ago

This happens all over the place -- for some reason, the majority of the people won't learn. They'll tell you horror stories about how they lost a lot of work (or even money!) because a provider never gave them support, yet, go back to that same provider. A group of acquaintances had a Facebook group where they shared research and documents. It got deleted and they lost everything. Thrice. I suggested they used something else for document storage each time, but was just ignored or shooed off. The root cause of the problem is kinda beyond me -- but it's clear that people are unwilling to learn from experience when it comes to these things, and that these free services will continue to behave as they do because there's no downside to doing so.

proactivesvcs 9y ago
My sister had her broadband slammed (taken over by an ISP without any request or permission whatsoever) which left her with an unreliable and slower service. She stayed with them. For about three years the router they sent her would kick off the fifth-oldest DHCP lease and the ISP kept refusing to replace it. It's a truly fascinating psychological effect.
nerflad 9y ago
It's "who moved my cheese". People will violently resist changing their routines.

wyclif 9y ago

Worse than that, if we take those words at face value (and that person works in journalism), they apparently don't even know that email != gmail.

rocqua 9y ago

I'd love to switch away from gmail, but their 'important mail' function is essentially unique to them, and I love it. Sadly, this seems like a system that can't really be self-hosted. It requires data.

Godel_unicode 9y ago
If you have Gmail you have a fantastic training set of important and not important email pre-labeled for you to try learning that model for yourself.

jwilk 9y ago

What alternatives to GMail do you recommend?

whiddershins 9y ago
Honestly I think the answer to your question is: giant fail by the tech community, because to my knowledge there isn’t anything actually comparable, free or paid.
- DashRattlesnake 9y ago
  Fastmail certainly is comparable.
DashRattlesnake 9y ago
https://www.fastmail.com/ https://www.fastmail.com/ It costs $5/month if you want to use your own domain. I've pretty much stopped using Gmail, etc. and switched totally to them.
- jftuga 9y ago
  How is their calendar?
  - DashRattlesnake 9y ago
    I haven't used it as much, but it seems just as good for single-person use. It's WebDAV IIRC. I haven't tried to use any "shared calendar" features.
- whiddershins 9y ago
  Do you find their web interface as good as Gmail?
  - DashRattlesnake 9y ago
    Yes, I do. The only thing I miss is tagging/archiving. Fastmail uses a traditional folder paradigm, and archiving only moves the message to a special archive folder. Their login 2FA options are as good as Gmails, and I like their mail-rules better (though you have to drop into "power users" mode more than I'd like).