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Secondly, we care deeply about having positive relationships with developers and all our users. This is so deeply disingenuous and at odds with so many peoples

Secondly, we care deeply about having positive relationships with developers and all our users. This is so deeply disingenuous and at odds with so many peoples experience it’s absurd. Or satire?

deelly 7y ago
Probably key point is "..with developers and all our users.." but not individual developers and individual users.
- megous 7y ago
  Key point is that words don't matter unless they're backed up by some concrete action. The worst thing about this blocking is that you often times don't get to see what's wrong. So you're running around in circles, trying to use various mx tools on the internet to find the problem. This is not just gmail issue. Though with many smaller providers you'll at least get something like "your blocked by XYZ blacklist".
  - npsimons 7y ago
    > This is not just gmail issue. Though with many smaller providers you'll at least get something like "your blocked by XYZ blacklist". I would much rather get this than silent discard. At least when I've seen things in the logs in the past (yes, I do read my server logs), I have been able to follow up and fix them. I get the sense that Google is even going beyond using 550 and discarding email silently. I just did a grep through my logs to see if this message came up and found it nowhere, yet I have users on my mailing lists claiming they don't get emails and they've checked their spam folders. They're on GMail.
asark 7y ago
I think (some of them) may think that's true, but their internal reward structures and top-down priorities are clearly set up such that it's not, in practice. There's no other reason it could be so bad.
- darrmit 7y ago
  This seems to be common with the product teams I’ve interfaced with. Good intentions, but bad prioritization and little incentive to do anything other than cater to the big revenue drivers.
  - jrockway 7y ago
    Why would you start a for-profit company to not focus on "big revenue drivers"?
    - newsoul2019 7y ago
      If you are a for-profit company, why would you kill off business lines that are "only" making you $10-$50 million per year?
      - TheHegemon 7y ago
        Most likely due to opportunity cost. Your resources and effort would be better spent elsewhere.
        touristtam 7y ago
        Immediate profit and cost saving might hide something more valuable to a business in the long run: reputation.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
- ericol 7y ago
  I live in Argentina. Few years back, an ex government official from the previous government was caught in the act of hiding 8 million dollars in a church. My partner's auncle was also an ex government official from the previous government. He was in charge of the country's office for regulation work in rural areas. Up to that point, he was a complete believer that the government he was part of, was there to really change things and put the country in the right track. When the news about that other guy's 8 mill broke out, he was completelly and uterly devastated. I think the same can be applied to a lot of the people that works in Google regarding the way they perceive the company. I just recently read in the news that there has been some retaliation exherted on googlers because of organizing some walkouts. To think that your company just does good because you try to do good, and not take a look at what is really going around in the world related to what the company you work for is "a little" naive. Also, I think that right now companies like Google and FB should be treated and reasoned about like states. To think that they will not abuse their power in one way or the other - just like countries do - is also "a little" naive.
tedunangst 7y ago
How many people don't experience problems sending to gmail? Do you think blog posts criticizing and praising gmail deliverability are in equal proportion to users' experiences?
- throwaway2048 7y ago
  I don't really care about how many people it is, I primarily care they are fucking up my mail, with absolutely zero recourse or transparency whatsoever, just a total black hole.
- jcbrand 7y ago
  I'd be surprised if there are any self-hosters who never had any of their emails ending up in Gmail's spam folder. Disclosure: I've been self-hosting for 5 years.
- int_19h 7y ago
  Until recently, I didn't think I have a problem with GMail spam filtering. Then I looked at what was in my Spam folder. I haven't looked into it for a long time before, because, well, Google has trained me that their spam filtering "just works". I now try to check it at least once a week. The amount of false positives was staggering, and some of it was important.
sixothree 7y ago
Agreed. How exactly do external developers reach out to google?
munchbunny 7y ago
I had a similar reaction to that statement. Google tends to make the happy path quite pleasant, but the moment you stray from it, things get kafkaesque very, very quickly. Saying this from firsthand experience as a customer of Google's B2B offerings, Google earned its bad reputation on the enterprise side. Saying this after a good number of years as a PM: when you spend 40-50 hours a week thinking about your product, it's really easy to get lost in the weeds and forget that your users see your product from a totally different perspective than you do. I see this all the time because it's very, very difficult to avoid this problem.

Secondly, we care deeply about having positive relationships with developers and all our users. This is so deeply disingenuous and at odds with so many peoples experience it’s absurd. Or satire?

deelly 7y ago

Probably key point is "..with developers and all our users.." but not individual developers and individual users.

megous 7y ago
Key point is that words don't matter unless they're backed up by some concrete action. The worst thing about this blocking is that you often times don't get to see what's wrong. So you're running around in circles, trying to use various mx tools on the internet to find the problem. This is not just gmail issue. Though with many smaller providers you'll at least get something like "your blocked by XYZ blacklist".
- npsimons 7y ago
  > This is not just gmail issue. Though with many smaller providers you'll at least get something like "your blocked by XYZ blacklist". I would much rather get this than silent discard. At least when I've seen things in the logs in the past (yes, I do read my server logs), I have been able to follow up and fix them. I get the sense that Google is even going beyond using 550 and discarding email silently. I just did a grep through my logs to see if this message came up and found it nowhere, yet I have users on my mailing lists claiming they don't get emails and they've checked their spam folders. They're on GMail.

asark 7y ago

I think (some of them) may think that's true, but their internal reward structures and top-down priorities are clearly set up such that it's not, in practice. There's no other reason it could be so bad.

darrmit 7y ago
This seems to be common with the product teams I’ve interfaced with. Good intentions, but bad prioritization and little incentive to do anything other than cater to the big revenue drivers.
- jrockway 7y ago
  Why would you start a for-profit company to not focus on "big revenue drivers"?
  - newsoul2019 7y ago
    If you are a for-profit company, why would you kill off business lines that are "only" making you $10-$50 million per year?
    - TheHegemon 7y ago
      Most likely due to opportunity cost. Your resources and effort would be better spent elsewhere.
      - touristtam 7y ago
        Immediate profit and cost saving might hide something more valuable to a business in the long run: reputation.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
ericol 7y ago
I live in Argentina. Few years back, an ex government official from the previous government was caught in the act of hiding 8 million dollars in a church. My partner's auncle was also an ex government official from the previous government. He was in charge of the country's office for regulation work in rural areas. Up to that point, he was a complete believer that the government he was part of, was there to really change things and put the country in the right track. When the news about that other guy's 8 mill broke out, he was completelly and uterly devastated. I think the same can be applied to a lot of the people that works in Google regarding the way they perceive the company. I just recently read in the news that there has been some retaliation exherted on googlers because of organizing some walkouts. To think that your company just does good because you try to do good, and not take a look at what is really going around in the world related to what the company you work for is "a little" naive. Also, I think that right now companies like Google and FB should be treated and reasoned about like states. To think that they will not abuse their power in one way or the other - just like countries do - is also "a little" naive.

tedunangst 7y ago

How many people don't experience problems sending to gmail? Do you think blog posts criticizing and praising gmail deliverability are in equal proportion to users' experiences?

throwaway2048 7y ago
I don't really care about how many people it is, I primarily care they are fucking up my mail, with absolutely zero recourse or transparency whatsoever, just a total black hole.
jcbrand 7y ago
I'd be surprised if there are any self-hosters who never had any of their emails ending up in Gmail's spam folder. Disclosure: I've been self-hosting for 5 years.
int_19h 7y ago
Until recently, I didn't think I have a problem with GMail spam filtering. Then I looked at what was in my Spam folder. I haven't looked into it for a long time before, because, well, Google has trained me that their spam filtering "just works". I now try to check it at least once a week. The amount of false positives was staggering, and some of it was important.

sixothree 7y ago

Agreed. How exactly do external developers reach out to google?

munchbunny 7y ago

I had a similar reaction to that statement. Google tends to make the happy path quite pleasant, but the moment you stray from it, things get kafkaesque very, very quickly. Saying this from firsthand experience as a customer of Google's B2B offerings, Google earned its bad reputation on the enterprise side. Saying this after a good number of years as a PM: when you spend 40-50 hours a week thinking about your product, it's really easy to get lost in the weeds and forget that your users see your product from a totally different perspective than you do. I see this all the time because it's very, very difficult to avoid this problem.