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To say any of these things have made anyones life better is quite a stretch. Has gmail improved your quality of life? Really? Choose your words carefully. Ind

To say any of these things have made anyones life better is quite a stretch. Has gmail improved your quality of life? Really? Choose your words carefully. Indoor plumbing and electricity made life better. Gmail has not. Your email was fine before Gmail. And Google should pay their F-ing taxes. I do.

tkahn6 16y ago
Has gmail improved your quality of life? Really? The ability to access my email from anywhere, organize, and quickly search through thousands and thousands of emails in seconds has improved my quality of life. Maybe not as much as indoor plumbing, but it has.
- codexon 16y ago
  Your enthusiasm for gmail has blinded you to the reality. Sure it might be the best thing to you since sliced bread, but in every market estimate, gmail still trails behind hotmail and yahoo mail which means that for most people, gmail is not a radical improvement. http://www.quantcast.com/profile/trafficGraph?wunit=wd%3Acom.yahoo.mail&wunit1=wd:com.google.mail&wunit2=wd:com.live&drg=&dty=pp&gl=1yr&reachType=period&dtr=dm&width=522&country=UK&ggt=large&showDeleteButtons=true&v=9153602 http://www.quantcast.com/profile/trafficGraph?wunit=wd%3Acom... http://tctechcrunch.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/gmailvs-hotmailaol-chart.png http://tctechcrunch.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/gmailvs-hotm... Of course, since you are only a college freshman, I don't blame you for not knowing that there were dozens of serviceable webmail clients long before the existence of gmail.
  - anthuswilliams 16y ago
    What does his being a college freshman have to do with the argument? I call ad hominem.
    - codexon 16y ago
      It has everything to do with the argument. He thinks that Google invented or revolutionized webmail, maps, etc... when it is clear to anyone who's been on the internet for more than 8 years that they were only incremental updates.
      - gthank 16y ago
        It's all subjective, but for me the usability enhancements of GMail are far, FAR more than evolutionary.
  - andreyf 16y ago
    It's curious that you mention college freshmen because GMail saves Universities boatloads of money in infrastructure costs.
    - codexon 16y ago
      I think it's curious that you would try and argue this. Before Google sold gmail to colleges, my college and many others used squirrelmail and pine which was more than adequate. Any sizable college that had an IT department that could support email anyway.
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
- zooey 16y ago
  you know, something like yahoo mail...
CWuestefeld 16y ago
Everyone that uses gmail (or any other Google service) does so because it's better (in some way that we can't know) than the alternatives. The very fact that people have chosen to use it rather than those alternatives means that it has made their lives better. And Google should pay their F-ing taxes. I do. By all accounts, Google is paying the taxes they're legally obligated to. If you don't like the way those obligations play out, then you ought to be talking to your legislators, the ones who are architecting byzantine tax systems. Their efforts to control our behavior, pander to buy votes, etc., by giving preferential treatment to some, is what created the problem.
- joxenford 16y ago
  I do talk to my legislators. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of spare cash to bribe my legislators into making the laws work for me becasue I'm paying my taxes.
olliesaunders 16y ago
The point of this comment is to provide perspective. Of course GMail has contributed to an improvement in life but compared to these other things the improvement is small. We are also assuming that had GMail not been created another company couldn't do it.

tkahn6 16y ago

Has gmail improved your quality of life? Really? The ability to access my email from anywhere, organize, and quickly search through thousands and thousands of emails in seconds has improved my quality of life. Maybe not as much as indoor plumbing, but it has.

codexon 16y ago
Your enthusiasm for gmail has blinded you to the reality. Sure it might be the best thing to you since sliced bread, but in every market estimate, gmail still trails behind hotmail and yahoo mail which means that for most people, gmail is not a radical improvement. http://www.quantcast.com/profile/trafficGraph?wunit=wd%3Acom.yahoo.mail&wunit1=wd:com.google.mail&wunit2=wd:com.live&drg=&dty=pp&gl=1yr&reachType=period&dtr=dm&width=522&country=UK&ggt=large&showDeleteButtons=true&v=9153602 http://www.quantcast.com/profile/trafficGraph?wunit=wd%3Acom... http://tctechcrunch.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/gmailvs-hotmailaol-chart.png http://tctechcrunch.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/gmailvs-hotm... Of course, since you are only a college freshman, I don't blame you for not knowing that there were dozens of serviceable webmail clients long before the existence of gmail.
- anthuswilliams 16y ago
  What does his being a college freshman have to do with the argument? I call ad hominem.
  - codexon 16y ago
    It has everything to do with the argument. He thinks that Google invented or revolutionized webmail, maps, etc... when it is clear to anyone who's been on the internet for more than 8 years that they were only incremental updates.
    - gthank 16y ago
      It's all subjective, but for me the usability enhancements of GMail are far, FAR more than evolutionary.
- andreyf 16y ago
  It's curious that you mention college freshmen because GMail saves Universities boatloads of money in infrastructure costs.
  - codexon 16y ago
    I think it's curious that you would try and argue this. Before Google sold gmail to colleges, my college and many others used squirrelmail and pine which was more than adequate. Any sizable college that had an IT department that could support email anyway.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
zooey 16y ago
you know, something like yahoo mail...

CWuestefeld 16y ago

Everyone that uses gmail (or any other Google service) does so because it's better (in some way that we can't know) than the alternatives. The very fact that people have chosen to use it rather than those alternatives means that it has made their lives better. And Google should pay their F-ing taxes. I do. By all accounts, Google is paying the taxes they're legally obligated to. If you don't like the way those obligations play out, then you ought to be talking to your legislators, the ones who are architecting byzantine tax systems. Their efforts to control our behavior, pander to buy votes, etc., by giving preferential treatment to some, is what created the problem.

joxenford 16y ago
I do talk to my legislators. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of spare cash to bribe my legislators into making the laws work for me becasue I'm paying my taxes.

olliesaunders 16y ago

The point of this comment is to provide perspective. Of course GMail has contributed to an improvement in life but compared to these other things the improvement is small. We are also assuming that had GMail not been created another company couldn't do it.