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It's really funny reading this and seeing the lower-ranked comments saying "Time to switch!" Yeah, you won't. Stop being hyperbolic. You're amazingly served by

It's really funny reading this and seeing the lower-ranked comments saying "Time to switch!" Yeah, you won't. Stop being hyperbolic. You're amazingly served by google and you'll forget this 20 minutes after service is restored. It makes me wonder, what duration of outage is necessary for people to actually switch?

leesalminen 6y ago
We switched from Rackspace’s cloud to AWS due to terrible failure modes with their managed MySQL product. We’d have a db cluster go down and wait hours for them to fix several times a year for several years. Switched to Aurora and haven’t looked back.
vmception 6y ago
I tried Zoho for my last startup, since gsuite nuked the free tier. That lasted 2 weeks. Being locked out of or requiring special considerations for the first calendar invite, or video conference, or collaborative document was a complete unnecessary pain. “But you can make a google account with your external email” barf. Its sad because Zoho is trying so hard too. Imagine planning and working on all those equivalent products. lol
- viraptor 6y ago
  I'm not sure I understand. What do you mean by locked out and by special considerations?
  - _-___________-_ 6y ago
    Presumably they were still trying to collaborate with people inside Google's walled garden of documents, calendar events and videoconferences.
    - vmception 6y ago
      Which is everyone, or at least a very predictable friction.
- fg43g443g 6y ago
  Nothing on planet is worse than Zoho. I tried their email service and even after I marked the same sender more than 100 times as spammer, their creepy service still not putting their emails automatically to the spam folder. There were many other issues with their service. Don't use Zoho or you will regret it.
  - ZohoMailSupport 6y ago
    We are sorry that we gave you this perception. Our Spam filter is self-learning and the algorithm responds to user markings. If we have your account information or the headers of the sample mail, we will be able to look into it and identify what went wrong. We request you to write to support (at) zohomail (dot) com with those details and description about the other issues you faced. We will definitely address it for you.
    - lallysingh 6y ago
      Downvoted for: (a) Sounding like a canned response (b) "We are sorry that we gave you this perception" passive aggressive gaslighting and abdication of any responsibility to the user. Really, I've barely ever heard of zoho and had no opinion of them _until_ this response. Now zoho's on my fuck-them list for talking this way to a customer. Speak like a human for fuck's sake.
      - tilolebo 6y ago
        Your message is actually much more problematic than its parent, IMO.
      - hobofan 6y ago
        Responding to "your spam detection is not working" with what is essentially spam has to be one of the most unintentionally funny things I've read on HN.
      - ZohoMailSupport 6y ago
        Hello! This was definitely not a canned response, but we can understand why it was seen that way. Tone is a really tricky thing through text, and we didn't mean to sound like a robot. We hope you won't mind if we try again: We are very sorry that the spam filter is giving you such trouble. It has self-learning capabilities, but algorithms are not always perfect. If you could send us your account details and the headers for some of the emails, we will look into this right away. Please send us an email at support (at) zohomail (dot) com when you have a few minutes and we will dig into the details.
- ZohoMailSupport 6y ago
  Sorry to learn about your unpleasant experience with us. We request you to elaborate the lock out and the special considerations you are referring to, by writing an email to support (at) zohomail (dot) com. Having specific details along with your account information will help us to analyze and make necessary corrections and enhancements. Looking forward to hearing from you.
  - chki 6y ago
    I think you are misunderstanding OP. At least I assume that Zoho will not be able to change Google's policies, otherwise that would truly be outstanding customer service.
  - vmception 6y ago
    For me you're not the problem, you just have no power here. Google services are more convenient to use with Google email accounts, they are more prevalent and there is no point in burdening an organization with another email provider if there is a choice.
- dx034 6y ago
  How are you locked out of business by not using Google? Enough companies run solely on Microsoft products without any issues. Others use separate providers for Email and conferencing (e.g. Zoom). I don't see how not using Google is a problem when dealing with other companies. Quite the opposite, it's still much harder to not use Excel if you exchange data with a lot of business partners.
  - vmception 6y ago
    "but you can use separate services for video conferencing, calendars, emails, look at all these other organizations that are less convenient and doing it just fine" yeah I'm aware. if you have a choice on a new organization, low budget but still able to access good, fast and cheap, use Gsuite.
    - dx034 6y ago
      Or Office, same prices for similar features.
uniqueid 6y ago
The only Google domains I allow on my pi.hole are youtube.com and a google subdomain that serves the css for youtube. Nobody who can afford to pay for a reputable webmail provider should be on Gmail. If not for privacy, because its design is terrible. If you use Google Chrome, or Youtube, or Google Docs, or Google DNS, or an Android device, you should not use Google Search. That's too much data to hand to one company. I use DDG, and when it's not good enough, I use Bing (and if I used Windows, I'd rule Bing out, too). Aside from privacy considerations, Google search quality has been declining for at least a year. I want to skate to where the puck is going, not where to where the puck is a mountain of ads followed by nonsense. "I left Google" is going to be the 20's version of "I left Facebook."
- pb7 6y ago
  The way you choose to live your life sounds like punishment.
  - uniqueid 6y ago
    Over the next decade, a lot of Google data will leak, piling up in giant torrents (literally) forever on the net. Photos and emails and search histories from millions of users. Over the next decade, downloading and storing and processing such dumps of leaked data will continue to become quicker, and require smaller devices. Over the next decade, mobile devices will shrink, resulting in smart glasses much more powerful than today's smart phones. Put that all together... It's 2030 and you're walking down the street. You pass by a stranger wearing Apple Glasses. The stranger once spent an hour installing an "Intel on Everybody!" app, and downloaded 100 TB of random leaked data from a torrent site on everyone in the world. As you enter the stranger's view, the glasses use the leaked data to facially identify you. Now that the glasses know who you are, they automatically alert the wearer of the types of data they know about you. The bored stranger occupies himself by reading your gmails from 2022, perusing compromising photos you saved, checking out your medical records, reading arguments you had here in the comments of HN, etc etc. Maybe my understanding of technology and security is wrong somehow, but that future seems awfully plausible to me. If the downside to minimizing my footprint is that I use DDG instead of Google, the upside is worth it.
toomanybeersies 6y ago
Maybe not time to switch, but it shows the value in distributing your services across different providers. Bit annoying to have your email, documents, cloud services, analytics, and video conferencing all go out at the same time, especially when everyone is working from home. I was supposed to have a Meet call with someone from the UK this morning, I couldn't join the call and they couldn't email me (I could still email them though, as I don't use G Suite for my email).
mrweasel 6y ago
Duration and frequency of outages. We switch to GSuite two years ago, because it did’t really make sense for us to continue maintaining a Zimbra installation, it cost to much time. GMail has been unavailable at least four times since switching, making it at least twice as unreliable as our old on-premise self-managed mail server.
swiley 6y ago
I was already slowly moving off google but then they locked me out of my account. At that point the only service I had been using was gmail. It's easier to switch than you think.
amelius 6y ago
> It makes me wonder, what duration of outage is necessary for people to actually switch? If Google's security measures had an outage ...
- tempay 6y ago
  I'm not sure this is a reference this is relevant regardless: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4GB_NDU43Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4GB_NDU43Q
bonestamp2 6y ago
My guess is it's less about the duration and more about the consequences. If our VPN was down a week we might not switch because we have an alternate workflow, but if our production servers were down for a few hours we'd switch. Also, I missed one really important email and that's all it took to switch the hosting for that.

leesalminen 6y ago

We switched from Rackspace’s cloud to AWS due to terrible failure modes with their managed MySQL product. We’d have a db cluster go down and wait hours for them to fix several times a year for several years. Switched to Aurora and haven’t looked back.

vmception 6y ago

I tried Zoho for my last startup, since gsuite nuked the free tier. That lasted 2 weeks. Being locked out of or requiring special considerations for the first calendar invite, or video conference, or collaborative document was a complete unnecessary pain. “But you can make a google account with your external email” barf. Its sad because Zoho is trying so hard too. Imagine planning and working on all those equivalent products. lol

viraptor 6y ago
I'm not sure I understand. What do you mean by locked out and by special considerations?
- _-___________-_ 6y ago
  Presumably they were still trying to collaborate with people inside Google's walled garden of documents, calendar events and videoconferences.
  - vmception 6y ago
    Which is everyone, or at least a very predictable friction.
fg43g443g 6y ago
Nothing on planet is worse than Zoho. I tried their email service and even after I marked the same sender more than 100 times as spammer, their creepy service still not putting their emails automatically to the spam folder. There were many other issues with their service. Don't use Zoho or you will regret it.
- ZohoMailSupport 6y ago
  We are sorry that we gave you this perception. Our Spam filter is self-learning and the algorithm responds to user markings. If we have your account information or the headers of the sample mail, we will be able to look into it and identify what went wrong. We request you to write to support (at) zohomail (dot) com with those details and description about the other issues you faced. We will definitely address it for you.
  - lallysingh 6y ago
    Downvoted for: (a) Sounding like a canned response (b) "We are sorry that we gave you this perception" passive aggressive gaslighting and abdication of any responsibility to the user. Really, I've barely ever heard of zoho and had no opinion of them _until_ this response. Now zoho's on my fuck-them list for talking this way to a customer. Speak like a human for fuck's sake.
    - tilolebo 6y ago
      Your message is actually much more problematic than its parent, IMO.
    - hobofan 6y ago
      Responding to "your spam detection is not working" with what is essentially spam has to be one of the most unintentionally funny things I've read on HN.
    - ZohoMailSupport 6y ago
      Hello! This was definitely not a canned response, but we can understand why it was seen that way. Tone is a really tricky thing through text, and we didn't mean to sound like a robot. We hope you won't mind if we try again: We are very sorry that the spam filter is giving you such trouble. It has self-learning capabilities, but algorithms are not always perfect. If you could send us your account details and the headers for some of the emails, we will look into this right away. Please send us an email at support (at) zohomail (dot) com when you have a few minutes and we will dig into the details.
ZohoMailSupport 6y ago
Sorry to learn about your unpleasant experience with us. We request you to elaborate the lock out and the special considerations you are referring to, by writing an email to support (at) zohomail (dot) com. Having specific details along with your account information will help us to analyze and make necessary corrections and enhancements. Looking forward to hearing from you.
- chki 6y ago
  I think you are misunderstanding OP. At least I assume that Zoho will not be able to change Google's policies, otherwise that would truly be outstanding customer service.
- vmception 6y ago
  For me you're not the problem, you just have no power here. Google services are more convenient to use with Google email accounts, they are more prevalent and there is no point in burdening an organization with another email provider if there is a choice.
dx034 6y ago
How are you locked out of business by not using Google? Enough companies run solely on Microsoft products without any issues. Others use separate providers for Email and conferencing (e.g. Zoom). I don't see how not using Google is a problem when dealing with other companies. Quite the opposite, it's still much harder to not use Excel if you exchange data with a lot of business partners.
- vmception 6y ago
  "but you can use separate services for video conferencing, calendars, emails, look at all these other organizations that are less convenient and doing it just fine" yeah I'm aware. if you have a choice on a new organization, low budget but still able to access good, fast and cheap, use Gsuite.
  - dx034 6y ago
    Or Office, same prices for similar features.

uniqueid 6y ago

The only Google domains I allow on my pi.hole are youtube.com and a google subdomain that serves the css for youtube. Nobody who can afford to pay for a reputable webmail provider should be on Gmail. If not for privacy, because its design is terrible. If you use Google Chrome, or Youtube, or Google Docs, or Google DNS, or an Android device, you should not use Google Search. That's too much data to hand to one company. I use DDG, and when it's not good enough, I use Bing (and if I used Windows, I'd rule Bing out, too). Aside from privacy considerations, Google search quality has been declining for at least a year. I want to skate to where the puck is going, not where to where the puck is a mountain of ads followed by nonsense. "I left Google" is going to be the 20's version of "I left Facebook."

pb7 6y ago
The way you choose to live your life sounds like punishment.
- uniqueid 6y ago
  Over the next decade, a lot of Google data will leak, piling up in giant torrents (literally) forever on the net. Photos and emails and search histories from millions of users. Over the next decade, downloading and storing and processing such dumps of leaked data will continue to become quicker, and require smaller devices. Over the next decade, mobile devices will shrink, resulting in smart glasses much more powerful than today's smart phones. Put that all together... It's 2030 and you're walking down the street. You pass by a stranger wearing Apple Glasses. The stranger once spent an hour installing an "Intel on Everybody!" app, and downloaded 100 TB of random leaked data from a torrent site on everyone in the world. As you enter the stranger's view, the glasses use the leaked data to facially identify you. Now that the glasses know who you are, they automatically alert the wearer of the types of data they know about you. The bored stranger occupies himself by reading your gmails from 2022, perusing compromising photos you saved, checking out your medical records, reading arguments you had here in the comments of HN, etc etc. Maybe my understanding of technology and security is wrong somehow, but that future seems awfully plausible to me. If the downside to minimizing my footprint is that I use DDG instead of Google, the upside is worth it.

toomanybeersies 6y ago

Maybe not time to switch, but it shows the value in distributing your services across different providers. Bit annoying to have your email, documents, cloud services, analytics, and video conferencing all go out at the same time, especially when everyone is working from home. I was supposed to have a Meet call with someone from the UK this morning, I couldn't join the call and they couldn't email me (I could still email them though, as I don't use G Suite for my email).

mrweasel 6y ago

Duration and frequency of outages. We switch to GSuite two years ago, because it did’t really make sense for us to continue maintaining a Zimbra installation, it cost to much time. GMail has been unavailable at least four times since switching, making it at least twice as unreliable as our old on-premise self-managed mail server.

swiley 6y ago

I was already slowly moving off google but then they locked me out of my account. At that point the only service I had been using was gmail. It's easier to switch than you think.

amelius 6y ago

> It makes me wonder, what duration of outage is necessary for people to actually switch? If Google's security measures had an outage ...

tempay 6y ago
I'm not sure this is a reference this is relevant regardless: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4GB_NDU43Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4GB_NDU43Q

bonestamp2 6y ago

My guess is it's less about the duration and more about the consequences. If our VPN was down a week we might not switch because we have an alternate workflow, but if our production servers were down for a few hours we'd switch. Also, I missed one really important email and that's all it took to switch the hosting for that.