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The only silver lining is that www.openstreetmap.org (OSM) will hopefully get more love. Since google admits that 98% of current users will continue to incur 0

The only silver lining is that www.openstreetmap.org (OSM) will hopefully get more love. Since google admits that 98% of current users will continue to incur 0 cost this is simply a blatant way of getting a real name associated with their user data.

jedberg 9y ago
Why does everyone always assume the worst? > this is simply a blatant way of getting a real name associated with their user data Or maybe it's a way to control access to their systems in a more reasonable and auditable way, and prevent some abuse too.
- tj89 9y ago
  don't forget they are raising their prices a ton as well
- theDoug 9y ago
  Any service priced $free or not tied to a credit card tends to see people play at incredibly dumb levels of abuse. Within a month of Gmail going public I remember people already trying to string accounts together as a makeshift multi-GB FTP store. Disclosure: I work in Google Cloud, not on this
  - jedberg 9y ago
    Yup. As someone who ran a free service for many years, it’s amazing how creative the abusers can be.
  - derivagral 9y ago
    For what it is worth, I had a fun college project for a class doing exactly this ("distributed filesystem".) Back before github and dropbox took off, anyway.
    - tonto 9y ago
      Seems like many college os(?) classes tested making FUSE FS systems
- ageofwant 9y ago
  Not assuming the worst has gotten us to the current state of personal exposure to entities whose core welfare concerns does not align with or extend those of an individual. Not assuming the worst as default will only make matters worse. Even if Google has very good and honest intentions with gathering this information at this time, you have to assume the inevitability of that changing in future, either under duress of corporate existence or being compelled by larger more powerful actors. Have I read the above 5 years ago I would have rolled my eyes at yet another privacy nut raving on the internets.
- gmiller123456 9y ago
  > Why does everyone always assume the worst? If the worst isn't part of the strategy, they should explicitly forbid themselves from doing the worst in their Terms of Service. Or at least publicly advertised in a legally enforceable manner. The fact that they don't is pretty good red flag that they either are doing it or want to leave the door open to doing it later.
ceejayoz 9y ago
> Since google admits that 98% of current users will continue to incur 0 cost this is simply a blatant way of getting a real name associated with their user data. I'd imagine it's more a way to make sure the remaining 2% don't just spin up a new account every time they hit a limit.

jedberg 9y ago

Why does everyone always assume the worst? > this is simply a blatant way of getting a real name associated with their user data Or maybe it's a way to control access to their systems in a more reasonable and auditable way, and prevent some abuse too.

tj89 9y ago
don't forget they are raising their prices a ton as well
theDoug 9y ago
Any service priced $free or not tied to a credit card tends to see people play at incredibly dumb levels of abuse. Within a month of Gmail going public I remember people already trying to string accounts together as a makeshift multi-GB FTP store. Disclosure: I work in Google Cloud, not on this
- jedberg 9y ago
  Yup. As someone who ran a free service for many years, it’s amazing how creative the abusers can be.
- derivagral 9y ago
  For what it is worth, I had a fun college project for a class doing exactly this ("distributed filesystem".) Back before github and dropbox took off, anyway.
  - tonto 9y ago
    Seems like many college os(?) classes tested making FUSE FS systems
ageofwant 9y ago
Not assuming the worst has gotten us to the current state of personal exposure to entities whose core welfare concerns does not align with or extend those of an individual. Not assuming the worst as default will only make matters worse. Even if Google has very good and honest intentions with gathering this information at this time, you have to assume the inevitability of that changing in future, either under duress of corporate existence or being compelled by larger more powerful actors. Have I read the above 5 years ago I would have rolled my eyes at yet another privacy nut raving on the internets.
gmiller123456 9y ago
> Why does everyone always assume the worst? If the worst isn't part of the strategy, they should explicitly forbid themselves from doing the worst in their Terms of Service. Or at least publicly advertised in a legally enforceable manner. The fact that they don't is pretty good red flag that they either are doing it or want to leave the door open to doing it later.

ceejayoz 9y ago

> Since google admits that 98% of current users will continue to incur 0 cost this is simply a blatant way of getting a real name associated with their user data. I'd imagine it's more a way to make sure the remaining 2% don't just spin up a new account every time they hit a limit.