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I hope he never actually knows about this account before he's given access to it. I can imagine being raised with this being a thing and developing a mind palac

I hope he never actually knows about this account before he's given access to it. I can imagine being raised with this being a thing and developing a mind palace around the contents of the inbox. I can't imagine losing access to 18 years of life's history and memories because Google decided to kill free accounts, or charge more than you're comfortable paying, or they suffer catastrophic data loss. Or they decide to kill Workspace accounts and they can't be converted, and you are given the data in a mostly unusable format bc they weren't told how to export the data by the law. I've lost entire wings of my mind palace because I lost a notebook, diary, hard drive, or published works and been bereft of that knowledge or those memories. Some wings I've been lucky enough to rebuild, others are like if the Notre Dame had never been visually captured, drawn, or scanned. Imagine planning on recording 18 years of your infant's life--all their familial social connections and day-to-day happenstance; the things that make a person who they are--, preemptively, on Google's behalf. Then imagine not even having a guarantee that you will be able to use the data you collected for its originally intended purpose. Set this up locally and in a format you control, and can secure yourself. Put it on a tape drive or on a USB in a digital storage preserver (something to power on the nand cells so they don't bit rot) You don't know who your son is going to turn out to be. He might come to resent you for giving Google that level of insight into his life, or for recording it at all. After all, you have decided that your son does not have a right to privacy, and essentially given it away. Better to keep it local so it can be destroyed if that's what he would desire.

nomoreusernames 2y ago
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supportengineer 2y ago
I don't see anyone mentioning Google Takeout (takeout.google.com) - it's easy to use. I have a suggestion to make it easier - At the highest level of your Google Drive, make a folder containing the easily exportable types such as docs, sheets, pdfs, photos.
- xerox13ster 2y ago
  That's what I meant when I said they would be given the data in a mostly unusable format because Google wasn't told _how_ to export the data by the law. When they shut down GPM I requested my listening data via Takeout and it was in a format that was absolutely useless to me. OP seemed to be in Germany so Google has been told by the law to allow data exfiltration, but as we've seen with Apple, these companies engage in malicious compliance and there's no guarantee that they'll get usable data from Takeout. There's also no guarantee that over 18 years the EU regulatory bodies will remain uncaptured, and never reverse course on data controls such that Google could conceivably kill Takeout as a product due to "the excessive costs involved in supporting an organization wide data exfiltration tool"
geek_at 2y ago
Valid point. I'm backing up my google drive to my NAS for the same reason and I should do the same with the email accounts in our families google workspace domain. We're lucky to have snatched [ourlastname].[our countries TLD] so my son can have a really nice firstname@lastname.at address which in itself seems valuable these days. I'm also worried that if he gets the account too soon and does some kind of unintended wipe, all data is lost so maybe the backup is the way to go
- chrisweekly 2y ago
  Fastmail is a fantastic and inexpensive alternative to gmail.
  - beachy 2y ago
    One cool thing about Fastmail is you can have multiple domains and email addresses, for the price of a single user. e.g. certificateexpiry@mydomain.com ceo@coolstuff.com support@coolstuff.com info@hitmeup.com ...all funneling into your inbox. We were spending way too much money on GSuite before realising this.
    - cdmckay 2y ago
      You can do this with Groups in Google Workspace pretty easily.
  - Pufferbo 2y ago
    Love Fastmail. It really is fast, sometimes feels like 2 or 3x quicker to get emails than Gmail.
- Slapping5552 2y ago
  > We're lucky to have snatched [ourlastname].[our countries TLD Been planning to do this for my family as well. But after my (admin) passing, and with multiple children sharing the same domain name, one of my children will have to be the domain admin for everyone in the family. This might be fine if they remain in good terms and have enough trust of the admin to not screw their primary online identity... I have yet to figure this part of the equation out.
dfee 2y ago
> I can't imagine losing access to 18 years of life's history and memories because Google decided to kill free accounts, or charge more than you're comfortable paying, or they suffer catastrophic data loss. Oof. Google now charges me more than I’m comfortable paying and want us to upgrade to the next tier due to data usage. I’m happy to move off to another email provider, but my wife is upset that she’ll lose access to all the docs that have ever been shared with her on that Google Apps account. This is truly hell. Apparently, after we migrate off we can recreate a free, non-email Google apps account “me@mydomain.com”, but it’ll be empty. Suggestions, and sympathy for poor decision making 10+ years ago, welcome.
- svat 2y ago
  Just curious: could you delete some of the larger files, or do something else to reduce the data usage, to stay within the current tier?
  - dfee 2y ago
    Yes; that's a possibility, too. I'm trying to weigh whether that's the best course of action, or decouple our email and google docs. I have seen price increases a number of times already, though. What started at $5/mo/user has increased. I do feel like a captive, which breeds a bit of animosity, though.
- nox101 2y ago
  I’m not sure what your goal is you can “make a copy” of the docs shared to you. those copies are yours and you can download them. they’ll be included in backups, etc You can also share them with a free account and then have the free account make copies
ck2 2y ago
Someday Google could very likely terminate gmail accounts that block youtube ads Then there is this which just scrolls on and on forever https://killedbygoogle.com https://killedbygoogle.com (or https://gcemetery.co https://gcemetery.co )

nomoreusernames 2y ago

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supportengineer 2y ago

I don't see anyone mentioning Google Takeout (takeout.google.com) - it's easy to use. I have a suggestion to make it easier - At the highest level of your Google Drive, make a folder containing the easily exportable types such as docs, sheets, pdfs, photos.

xerox13ster 2y ago
That's what I meant when I said they would be given the data in a mostly unusable format because Google wasn't told _how_ to export the data by the law. When they shut down GPM I requested my listening data via Takeout and it was in a format that was absolutely useless to me. OP seemed to be in Germany so Google has been told by the law to allow data exfiltration, but as we've seen with Apple, these companies engage in malicious compliance and there's no guarantee that they'll get usable data from Takeout. There's also no guarantee that over 18 years the EU regulatory bodies will remain uncaptured, and never reverse course on data controls such that Google could conceivably kill Takeout as a product due to "the excessive costs involved in supporting an organization wide data exfiltration tool"

geek_at 2y ago

Valid point. I'm backing up my google drive to my NAS for the same reason and I should do the same with the email accounts in our families google workspace domain. We're lucky to have snatched [ourlastname].[our countries TLD] so my son can have a really nice firstname@lastname.at address which in itself seems valuable these days. I'm also worried that if he gets the account too soon and does some kind of unintended wipe, all data is lost so maybe the backup is the way to go

chrisweekly 2y ago
Fastmail is a fantastic and inexpensive alternative to gmail.
- beachy 2y ago
  One cool thing about Fastmail is you can have multiple domains and email addresses, for the price of a single user. e.g. certificateexpiry@mydomain.com ceo@coolstuff.com support@coolstuff.com info@hitmeup.com ...all funneling into your inbox. We were spending way too much money on GSuite before realising this.
  - cdmckay 2y ago
    You can do this with Groups in Google Workspace pretty easily.
- Pufferbo 2y ago
  Love Fastmail. It really is fast, sometimes feels like 2 or 3x quicker to get emails than Gmail.
Slapping5552 2y ago
> We're lucky to have snatched [ourlastname].[our countries TLD Been planning to do this for my family as well. But after my (admin) passing, and with multiple children sharing the same domain name, one of my children will have to be the domain admin for everyone in the family. This might be fine if they remain in good terms and have enough trust of the admin to not screw their primary online identity... I have yet to figure this part of the equation out.

dfee 2y ago

> I can't imagine losing access to 18 years of life's history and memories because Google decided to kill free accounts, or charge more than you're comfortable paying, or they suffer catastrophic data loss. Oof. Google now charges me more than I’m comfortable paying and want us to upgrade to the next tier due to data usage. I’m happy to move off to another email provider, but my wife is upset that she’ll lose access to all the docs that have ever been shared with her on that Google Apps account. This is truly hell. Apparently, after we migrate off we can recreate a free, non-email Google apps account “me@mydomain.com”, but it’ll be empty. Suggestions, and sympathy for poor decision making 10+ years ago, welcome.

svat 2y ago
Just curious: could you delete some of the larger files, or do something else to reduce the data usage, to stay within the current tier?
- dfee 2y ago
  Yes; that's a possibility, too. I'm trying to weigh whether that's the best course of action, or decouple our email and google docs. I have seen price increases a number of times already, though. What started at $5/mo/user has increased. I do feel like a captive, which breeds a bit of animosity, though.
nox101 2y ago
I’m not sure what your goal is you can “make a copy” of the docs shared to you. those copies are yours and you can download them. they’ll be included in backups, etc You can also share them with a free account and then have the free account make copies

ck2 2y ago

Someday Google could very likely terminate gmail accounts that block youtube ads Then there is this which just scrolls on and on forever https://killedbygoogle.com https://killedbygoogle.com (or https://gcemetery.co https://gcemetery.co )