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The point of this article is to switch from one Google for a lot of services to a disparate group of providers for same services... if one of the service provid

The point of this article is to switch from one Google for a lot of services to a disparate group of providers for same services... if one of the service providers goes away, or is no longer palatable, only the service they provide needs to be relocated. Google can suspend your account and the 20-30 things you depend on them can go away (or, at least, be unavailable in a customized fashion based on your own data). That's less of a risk if you use different providers for different services.

ravenstine 7y ago
To make matters worse, Google isn't known for their good customer service.
- buran77 7y ago
  That's an understatement. Google's customer service is legendary in the sense that everyone's heard of it but nobody has actually been able to "see" it. But having bad customer service is just bad service, confiscating users' data really not unlike theft.
  - ravenstine 7y ago
    Imagine if your landlord decided to not only evict you but immediately confiscate any possessions you have in their property.
    - netsharc 7y ago
      The feudalism analogy applies here too, im the old times the lord in the castle (or somebody working for him) can banish you from his area, taking your possessions and severing your contacts with the community, ruining your business, and so on. And they don't even need a valid reason, and when you ask "Why?!?" the soldiers would dragging you would just ignore you..
  - faitswulff 7y ago
    Google's customer service is definitely quirky. You have to write up your issue somewhere and then submit it to this strange orange 1990s-looking website. Then they prioritize tickets with input from random strangers on the internet before they can be seen by someone with enough authority to help you. But generally if you can get into the top 30 issues or so, someone will help you.
    - Mistri 7y ago
      What "strange orange website" are you talking about? I thought Google customer service was a myth — would love to know where I can go if I have an issue in the future.
      - pmalynin 7y ago
        He's talking about HN.
        Mistri 7y ago
        Ah, thought it was some reference to the old Blogger design. facepalm
- creato 7y ago
  This is often repeated, and I believe it... but on the other hand, I've been using google services pretty heavily for over a decade, including some paid services, and I've never wanted customer service from google over all that time. Precisely the thing I like about google services is that their shit works and I don't need help from them to use it. I suppose there's a risk of account suspension as mentioned above, but I still feel that risk is very low for me, my perception of these incidents that make noise on social media/HN is there is at least semi-shady shenanigans involved that trip spam/fraud/etc. alarms. I don't push those kinds of buttons, and neither do the vast majority of people, so I think this is a non-factor for most.
  - bruce511 7y ago
    You are right. The risk of an account termination is very low. On the other hand the penalty for failure is absurdly high. So ultimately it all depends on your willingness to accept the odds, and understand that it can, and does, happen - balancing that with the possible need to start over on the Internet one day.
  - est31 7y ago
    > this is a non-factor for most. That's precisely why they are getting away with it. But once you get targeted by them, there is no way out. If you hire one bad person with a banned account, it can happen that all Google accounts of the entire company are being banned, including your company's apps on Google Play, etc. On Youtube, even famous people like cgp grey got into issues with Google which claimed that cgp grey was impersonating himself. The core issue is that you can't have online spaces be free of rule enforcement, but the same time, in most if not all places, rules are enforced quite unfarily and without due process. For individuals this can mean social isolation, but for companies it can mean the end. There were some stories about this here on hn.
  - dkersten 7y ago
    Most people also don’t ever need customer service from PayPal, or any company really. The point is that when you do, you’re screwed. That’s not a worthwhile risk for important services like email. For other things perhaps it is. And everybody thinks it won’t happen to them. Every time there is a PayPal horror story there are comments from people whose business relies on them saying that they don’t believe the risk is high and that it won’t happen to them.
VvR-Ox 7y ago
This just puts the focus on another problem then: Tiny companies get eaten by big players [0] until you don't have any choice or it is too much of an effort to you to switch to an alternative solution. In my opinion it would be helpful to acquire knowledge how to provide services on your own or to connect with people to share services (like a NextCloud). On the market you will not find a provider that can guarantee to be it's own master or exist at all in years to come. Also I have the bad feeling that a lot of providers try to prohibit data export to keep you caught in their eco-systems (e.g. see Apple deactivating the _basic_ function to export contacts to a SIM card). So now it is early enough to find a way to own and protect your data but in a few years it may be much worse and some day probably impossible or at least impractical. The upside to this is that no single service will just "go away" and as long as your NC-server is running you will have access to your services. [0] e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Alphabet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...

ravenstine 7y ago

To make matters worse, Google isn't known for their good customer service.

buran77 7y ago
That's an understatement. Google's customer service is legendary in the sense that everyone's heard of it but nobody has actually been able to "see" it. But having bad customer service is just bad service, confiscating users' data really not unlike theft.
- ravenstine 7y ago
  Imagine if your landlord decided to not only evict you but immediately confiscate any possessions you have in their property.
  - netsharc 7y ago
    The feudalism analogy applies here too, im the old times the lord in the castle (or somebody working for him) can banish you from his area, taking your possessions and severing your contacts with the community, ruining your business, and so on. And they don't even need a valid reason, and when you ask "Why?!?" the soldiers would dragging you would just ignore you..
- faitswulff 7y ago
  Google's customer service is definitely quirky. You have to write up your issue somewhere and then submit it to this strange orange 1990s-looking website. Then they prioritize tickets with input from random strangers on the internet before they can be seen by someone with enough authority to help you. But generally if you can get into the top 30 issues or so, someone will help you.
  - Mistri 7y ago
    What "strange orange website" are you talking about? I thought Google customer service was a myth — would love to know where I can go if I have an issue in the future.
    - pmalynin 7y ago
      He's talking about HN.
      - Mistri 7y ago
        Ah, thought it was some reference to the old Blogger design. facepalm
creato 7y ago
This is often repeated, and I believe it... but on the other hand, I've been using google services pretty heavily for over a decade, including some paid services, and I've never wanted customer service from google over all that time. Precisely the thing I like about google services is that their shit works and I don't need help from them to use it. I suppose there's a risk of account suspension as mentioned above, but I still feel that risk is very low for me, my perception of these incidents that make noise on social media/HN is there is at least semi-shady shenanigans involved that trip spam/fraud/etc. alarms. I don't push those kinds of buttons, and neither do the vast majority of people, so I think this is a non-factor for most.
- bruce511 7y ago
  You are right. The risk of an account termination is very low. On the other hand the penalty for failure is absurdly high. So ultimately it all depends on your willingness to accept the odds, and understand that it can, and does, happen - balancing that with the possible need to start over on the Internet one day.
- est31 7y ago
  > this is a non-factor for most. That's precisely why they are getting away with it. But once you get targeted by them, there is no way out. If you hire one bad person with a banned account, it can happen that all Google accounts of the entire company are being banned, including your company's apps on Google Play, etc. On Youtube, even famous people like cgp grey got into issues with Google which claimed that cgp grey was impersonating himself. The core issue is that you can't have online spaces be free of rule enforcement, but the same time, in most if not all places, rules are enforced quite unfarily and without due process. For individuals this can mean social isolation, but for companies it can mean the end. There were some stories about this here on hn.
- dkersten 7y ago
  Most people also don’t ever need customer service from PayPal, or any company really. The point is that when you do, you’re screwed. That’s not a worthwhile risk for important services like email. For other things perhaps it is. And everybody thinks it won’t happen to them. Every time there is a PayPal horror story there are comments from people whose business relies on them saying that they don’t believe the risk is high and that it won’t happen to them.

VvR-Ox 7y ago

This just puts the focus on another problem then: Tiny companies get eaten by big players [0] until you don't have any choice or it is too much of an effort to you to switch to an alternative solution. In my opinion it would be helpful to acquire knowledge how to provide services on your own or to connect with people to share services (like a NextCloud). On the market you will not find a provider that can guarantee to be it's own master or exist at all in years to come. Also I have the bad feeling that a lot of providers try to prohibit data export to keep you caught in their eco-systems (e.g. see Apple deactivating the _basic_ function to export contacts to a SIM card). So now it is early enough to find a way to own and protect your data but in a few years it may be much worse and some day probably impossible or at least impractical. The upside to this is that no single service will just "go away" and as long as your NC-server is running you will have access to your services. [0] e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Alphabet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...