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> He said it wasn’t about the money. His problem was the hassle. He had to figure out whether to continue using Google or find another option. So… it is about

by yunohn 4y ago

> He said it wasn’t about the money. His problem was the hassle. He had to figure out whether to continue using Google or find another option. So… it is about the money then? Looks like NYT will run any story these days.

posguy 4y ago
This seems to be a much more pertinent concern: > “It was less about the amount they’re charging and more about the fact that they changed the rules,” Mr. Oksavik said. “They could change the rules again at any time.” Sounds like some businesses have moved to Nextcloud, Zoho and iCloud due to the trust issues created by this sudden change by Google.
- yunohn 4y ago
  So they expect an infinite (free) contract? Which business or industry has ever offered this?
  - baridbelmedar 4y ago
    Yeah, it's almost always about money. People do not want to pay, it's that simple. They don't want to admit it, therefore they often come up with varying arguments such as "the changes comes too fast, hassle to change, you promised it would be free forever, etc)...
  - Tozen 4y ago
    I think it is more about user expectations, the impression that's given, or switching up. Google is making money off of people, even when what they offer is "free". They do whatever with user's email and data on their servers. And as a paid service, Google's customer support and reputation is comparatively shoddy, which is partially why various things are given away for free. At least that way they could take market share and then make money off of the data. I expect "must pay for it" Google Workspace to do as poorly as G Suite before it. But, as Google has deep pockets, I think they allow themselves the luxury to keep that division around.
- sha256sum 4y ago
  Yep, and it brings up a question all business owners should ask themselves: how will you mitigate the risk of your cloud provider turning hostile against you? This includes locking you out of administrative accounts, jacking prices or changing TOS with little notice, etc.
  - thechao 4y ago
    It'd be nice if I could align my identity to my service provider: gmail for Google, iCloud for Apple; and ... Amazon-mail for Amazon; hulu mail for Hulu? AT&T-mail, .. For the "big" players it seems it'd be eaay enough for me to use a keychain application synchronized across multiple 3rd-party platforms. This would let me define my "total" identity privately (in my personal keychain) without having to worry about cross-vendor contamination. The hide-my-email hack from iCloud is not a "real" substitute. A change-in-behavior from Apple would cause issues everywhere else. This really feels like a place a co-op or a govt agency with incentives aligned to its members could really help... Alternately, a bit of legislation requiring email-less account generation, or allowing credit card providers to enforce such provisions would work.
postalrat 4y ago
Or it could be about being with a service you can trust won't suddenly change the rules.
- yunohn 4y ago
  There is no such thing as a never changing service. That is a fantasy in any industry. There is nothing sudden about asking money for a free service, you must expect to pay for value provided at some point.
  - hnfong 4y ago
    > There is no such thing as a never changing service. That is a fantasy in any industry. There's no such thing as "never", but you can definitely pay enough for a service that the service provider agrees to not change things for a certain period of time. The main risk is that the company might disappear but that's why some businesses choose large established players instead of SMEs. > There is nothing sudden about asking money for a free service, you must expect to pay for value provided at some point. For a long time the value users provided to Google was the data. But of course that promotion was more important than the public good-will...
    - yunohn 4y ago
      > but you can definitely pay enough for a service That’s exactly the issue here - they weren’t paying anything for the service provided. > For a long time the value users provided to Google was the data But Google doesn’t and hasn’t used Workspace data for Ads (1). That would be bad business. (1) https://workspace.google.com/learn-more/security/security-whitepaper/page-6.html https://workspace.google.com/learn-more/security/security-wh...

by yunohn 4y ago

posguy 4y ago

This seems to be a much more pertinent concern: > “It was less about the amount they’re charging and more about the fact that they changed the rules,” Mr. Oksavik said. “They could change the rules again at any time.” Sounds like some businesses have moved to Nextcloud, Zoho and iCloud due to the trust issues created by this sudden change by Google.

yunohn 4y ago
So they expect an infinite (free) contract? Which business or industry has ever offered this?
- baridbelmedar 4y ago
  Yeah, it's almost always about money. People do not want to pay, it's that simple. They don't want to admit it, therefore they often come up with varying arguments such as "the changes comes too fast, hassle to change, you promised it would be free forever, etc)...
- Tozen 4y ago
  I think it is more about user expectations, the impression that's given, or switching up. Google is making money off of people, even when what they offer is "free". They do whatever with user's email and data on their servers. And as a paid service, Google's customer support and reputation is comparatively shoddy, which is partially why various things are given away for free. At least that way they could take market share and then make money off of the data. I expect "must pay for it" Google Workspace to do as poorly as G Suite before it. But, as Google has deep pockets, I think they allow themselves the luxury to keep that division around.
sha256sum 4y ago
Yep, and it brings up a question all business owners should ask themselves: how will you mitigate the risk of your cloud provider turning hostile against you? This includes locking you out of administrative accounts, jacking prices or changing TOS with little notice, etc.
- thechao 4y ago
  It'd be nice if I could align my identity to my service provider: gmail for Google, iCloud for Apple; and ... Amazon-mail for Amazon; hulu mail for Hulu? AT&T-mail, .. For the "big" players it seems it'd be eaay enough for me to use a keychain application synchronized across multiple 3rd-party platforms. This would let me define my "total" identity privately (in my personal keychain) without having to worry about cross-vendor contamination. The hide-my-email hack from iCloud is not a "real" substitute. A change-in-behavior from Apple would cause issues everywhere else. This really feels like a place a co-op or a govt agency with incentives aligned to its members could really help... Alternately, a bit of legislation requiring email-less account generation, or allowing credit card providers to enforce such provisions would work.

postalrat 4y ago

Or it could be about being with a service you can trust won't suddenly change the rules.

yunohn 4y ago
There is no such thing as a never changing service. That is a fantasy in any industry. There is nothing sudden about asking money for a free service, you must expect to pay for value provided at some point.
- hnfong 4y ago
  > There is no such thing as a never changing service. That is a fantasy in any industry. There's no such thing as "never", but you can definitely pay enough for a service that the service provider agrees to not change things for a certain period of time. The main risk is that the company might disappear but that's why some businesses choose large established players instead of SMEs. > There is nothing sudden about asking money for a free service, you must expect to pay for value provided at some point. For a long time the value users provided to Google was the data. But of course that promotion was more important than the public good-will...
  - yunohn 4y ago
    > but you can definitely pay enough for a service That’s exactly the issue here - they weren’t paying anything for the service provided. > For a long time the value users provided to Google was the data But Google doesn’t and hasn’t used Workspace data for Ads (1). That would be bad business. (1) https://workspace.google.com/learn-more/security/security-whitepaper/page-6.html https://workspace.google.com/learn-more/security/security-wh...