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To anyone in this thread not liking these features, for good reasons, and are unable to avoid them. I sympathize. Now, have it your way, take back the control

by jraph 5y ago

To anyone in this thread not liking these features, for good reasons, and are unable to avoid them. I sympathize. Now, have it your way, take back the control by using your computer with software you can control. You are currently playing in someone else's garden, by their rules. That might have been enjoyable for a while, now just leave, your not at home. Never my dumb photo viewer and my dumb file manager hurt me / tried to outsmart me with this kind of unwarranted behaviors. Just take an external storage drive, put your photos in there, ensure you make backups and done. Don't let someone else / big corporations with motives not aligned with yours control you. Control your life! And your relatives will also thank you for the increased privacy for them. It might be a bit less convenient but the peace of mind you gain is invaluable. These "someone else's computer" sentences are very concrete.

nonameiguess 5y ago
This was a very minor reason in the grand order of reasons, but it played into why I finally left Facebook a few years ago. It's not like I was using it as a photo manager. I'd only uploaded six photos ever and had been a member since 2004. But as I was sitting in the hospital recovering from my third spine surgery in 16 months, unable to even walk, and they throw me a photo on my timeline "hey, remember just 5 years ago when you could summit a mountain?" Yeah, I remember. It felt like they were kicking me in the face exactly after I'd already fallen down. I did turn the feature off once they let you, but it doesn't do a user much good to throw new features like that in their face and then let them opt out after you've already insulted them.
- codeflo 5y ago
  My story is less interesting, but I also remember quitting Facebook when it started to taunt me with photos of a past relationship that I wasn’t completely over yet at the time. Stuff like that has to be common. Did the “growth hacking” cynics who design these features not realize the harm they cause, or is the generated “engagement” still worth it in aggregate despite a few lost users?
weird-eye-issue 5y ago
You can also... Disable these features in Google Photos. Why are you being so dramatic over one feature in a photo app? I love automatic backups, being able to view on my phone or computers, being able to search by person/location/thing
- jraph 5y ago
  I wouldn't know, I never entertained the idea trusting Google to host my photos, but this whole thread where people are seemingly hurt by the software they use felt very cringy to me. It's very much not normal. And of course it's not about just this feature. My comment is more general than that. I took excuse from this one example to encourage people to take back control on their computing because it seems important to me. I'm am being so dramatic about this because this whole situation where people do not control anything feels alarming to me. I understand that you like convenience. If it suits you, whatever floats your (and many people's) boat, I'm no one to tell you what to do. Of course Google is convenient. That's one of their strategy to build their monopoly. I would not rely on Google for the backups, though. There are enough stories about people loosing access to their account over Google's whims. So that part is not solved, you still have to handle that, or pray but I'm not sure it really helps.
ggm 5y ago
I did. The sw developer is implementing surface features from Google photos including "your timeline" and "memories" because of requests for feature parity, disregarding basics like EXIF date handling/correcting, and album structure/nesting. Another suite I like isn't doing that, but suffers from low funding and hobby time burden.

by jraph 5y ago

nonameiguess 5y ago

This was a very minor reason in the grand order of reasons, but it played into why I finally left Facebook a few years ago. It's not like I was using it as a photo manager. I'd only uploaded six photos ever and had been a member since 2004. But as I was sitting in the hospital recovering from my third spine surgery in 16 months, unable to even walk, and they throw me a photo on my timeline "hey, remember just 5 years ago when you could summit a mountain?" Yeah, I remember. It felt like they were kicking me in the face exactly after I'd already fallen down. I did turn the feature off once they let you, but it doesn't do a user much good to throw new features like that in their face and then let them opt out after you've already insulted them.

codeflo 5y ago
My story is less interesting, but I also remember quitting Facebook when it started to taunt me with photos of a past relationship that I wasn’t completely over yet at the time. Stuff like that has to be common. Did the “growth hacking” cynics who design these features not realize the harm they cause, or is the generated “engagement” still worth it in aggregate despite a few lost users?

weird-eye-issue 5y ago

You can also... Disable these features in Google Photos. Why are you being so dramatic over one feature in a photo app? I love automatic backups, being able to view on my phone or computers, being able to search by person/location/thing

jraph 5y ago
I wouldn't know, I never entertained the idea trusting Google to host my photos, but this whole thread where people are seemingly hurt by the software they use felt very cringy to me. It's very much not normal. And of course it's not about just this feature. My comment is more general than that. I took excuse from this one example to encourage people to take back control on their computing because it seems important to me. I'm am being so dramatic about this because this whole situation where people do not control anything feels alarming to me. I understand that you like convenience. If it suits you, whatever floats your (and many people's) boat, I'm no one to tell you what to do. Of course Google is convenient. That's one of their strategy to build their monopoly. I would not rely on Google for the backups, though. There are enough stories about people loosing access to their account over Google's whims. So that part is not solved, you still have to handle that, or pray but I'm not sure it really helps.

ggm 5y ago

I did. The sw developer is implementing surface features from Google photos including "your timeline" and "memories" because of requests for feature parity, disregarding basics like EXIF date handling/correcting, and album structure/nesting. Another suite I like isn't doing that, but suffers from low funding and hobby time burden.