6 ms·

Anecdotally, I don’t see any of this. I have all “smart” features in gmail turned off; there is an option like this in the settings. Google’s Help: https://sup

Anecdotally, I don’t see any of this. I have all “smart” features in gmail turned off; there is an option like this in the settings. Google’s Help: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15604322 https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15604322 Also relevant: > By default, smart feature settings are off if you live in: The European Economic Area, Japan, Switzerland, United Kingdom

jeffbee 11mo ago
[flagged]
protoster 11mo ago
This is often the case with Google products because the A/B testing is rampant.
kyrra 11mo ago
This. You can disable all smart features (which includes things like mail categories, AI auto-complete, and most things that look at your emails). Gear -> All Settings -> General tab (default) -> Smart features: Turn on smart features in Gmail, Chat, and Meet Linked help page: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15604322 https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15604322
- mrweasel 11mo ago
  How many would turn them on if they defaulted to "Off"? Probably not enough to justify the development cost.
  - kvirani 11mo ago
    True but that is a function of ignorance too. There are plenty of good features in Gmail that are off by default, like undo / delayed send and keyboard shortcuts.
    - mrweasel 11mo ago
      "Enable delay send - Allows you to undo sending emails for 5 minutes", I'd argue that a lot of people would enable that pretty fast. Keyboard shortcuts probably would work like I'd expect, people like me would go "Hell no, no keyboard shortcuts in browser application EVER", and power users would opt into that in an instant.
      - dexterdog 11mo ago
        Allow you to undo sending for 5 minutes means email delivery is delayed by 5 minutes.
        kelnos 11mo ago
        It doesn't have to be 5 minutes. It could be 15 seconds. I've used that feature (in Fastmail), and find it very valuable.
        golem14 11mo ago
        I'm confused. Doesn't gmail offer an 'undo' for send by default ? At least for the last 5 years ? It's in General settings "Undo Send" and can be set up to 30 seconds ?
        Izkata 11mo ago
        And before that it was under the Labs experimental features, I think I enabled it in the late 2000s.
- pera 11mo ago
  I really wished they would also let you disable those very annoying modal popups announcing yet-another-chatbot-integration twice a week: My company is already paying for your product, just let me do my work ffs...
- echelon 11mo ago
  > You can disable all smart features For how long? You don't own the platform. Google PMs may decide to roll it out to everyone at some point to hit numbers.
  - ctoth 11mo ago
    And this is generically true and always has been about every aspect of GMail? What would you suggest people do. Self-host? I'm just trying to understand why you posted this. It's generically true. Any company can change anything at any point. May as well just pack it up boys.
    - hdjrudni 11mo ago
      > I'm just trying to understand why you posted this. It's generically true. Any company can change anything at any point. May as well just pack it up boys. Yes, any SaaS can change any feature at any time. Some companies have different motives though. We're not paying for GMail. When customers pay a monthly subscription and can cancel at any time, you usually want to keep them happy. The internal motives are also different. Are employees promoted for just launching stuff? Are they running out of helpful features to launch?
    - skywhopper 11mo ago
      The point is to say that it’s bad and Google specifically can’t be trusted. It’s good to express disapproval of unethical business practices.
    - A_D_E_P_T 11mo ago
      You can't self-host these days -- your emails will get stuck in every kind of spam filter there is, and you'll always have cause to wonder if your emails are received by their intended recipients, or lost to the abyss. You've got to use either Gmail, Microsoft, Protonmail, etc. I don't love them, but Proton is probably the best of a bad bunch.
      - blibble 11mo ago
        > You can't self-host these days -- your emails will get stuck in every kind of spam filter there is, and you'll always have cause to wonder if your emails are received by their intended recipients, or lost to the abyss. this is not true unless you end up on an IP previously abused if you don't want to take on the risk at all, there's email services for pennies / thousand emails
adriand 11mo ago
I would really love it if there was a "smart setting" (or a dumb setting) to prevent people from sending me their drip marketing spam. The spam filtering in my personal Gmail is adequate, if not perfect (I really don't understand how the constant life insurance spam is getting through). But my main client uses Google Workspace or GSuite or whatever it is called these days, and my inbox for that email features a constant barrage of drip campaign garbage. Are Google's incentives misaligned in some way here? It's not like the heuristics are particularly difficult for this kind of email. Some of it even has unsubscribe links (I didn't subscribe), or, "If you don't want to hear from me again, just let me know", etc.
- reaperducer 11mo ago
  Some of it even has unsubscribe links (I didn't subscribe), or, "If you don't want to hear from me again, just let me know", etc. I don't know if this counts as "drip marketing" (a new term to me), but just this week Apple spammed me with some Apple Card offer for Hertz car rentals. No way to unsubscribe. No link. No mention of unsubscribing at all. And on the Apple Card web site, no way to turn off marketing emails. I wish you could still report these spam's to the FTC.
andrewl-hn 11mo ago
I run my email via imap and haven't seen GMail web UI for at least 15 years. Apple does some minor changes to Mail app but generally they follow "if it ain't broke don't fix it" motto, and I really appreciate that. Besides, I have email from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and FastMail in the same app, and I really appreciate that all email for me looks the same.
- dmd 11mo ago
  Good for you. 9999 out of 10,000 people don't know what a "gmail web UI" is, or even that there's something called email that is separate from the gmail web interface.
  - justsomehnguy 11mo ago
    > web interface. Bold of you to think they know what is this. I have seen enough people who wholeheartedly though the things in their phone stays in it and you lose access to them if you move to another phone.
    - da_chicken 11mo ago
      You didn't read the post you responded to. The above poster is not talking to end users about the web interface. The poster is talking to you. About the fact that end users don't separate the interface from the thing. You are making the same argument with the same language to someone that made the same point.
  - andrewl-hn 11mo ago
    True, and 10-20 years ago this seemed like a transitional issue: the world of technology was new and humanity needed time to adapt. Today I feel like some of this should be taught at school. Stuff like what is a browser, what is TLS, what are cookies, what is an email, what is phishing, etc. I know schools used to teach people Excel, Word and other office programs. Maybe they still do, and web should be a part of that curriculum.
  - Marsymars 11mo ago
rcMgD2BwE72F 11mo ago
I turned on Fastmail and all the AI bullshit went away for good. No regrets.
- Hammershaft 11mo ago
  Very happy with fastmail. It's amazing how much better the user experience (and speed performance!) is.

jeffbee 11mo ago

[flagged]

protoster 11mo ago

This is often the case with Google products because the A/B testing is rampant.

kyrra 11mo ago

This. You can disable all smart features (which includes things like mail categories, AI auto-complete, and most things that look at your emails). Gear -> All Settings -> General tab (default) -> Smart features: Turn on smart features in Gmail, Chat, and Meet Linked help page: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15604322 https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15604322

mrweasel 11mo ago
How many would turn them on if they defaulted to "Off"? Probably not enough to justify the development cost.
- kvirani 11mo ago
  True but that is a function of ignorance too. There are plenty of good features in Gmail that are off by default, like undo / delayed send and keyboard shortcuts.
  - mrweasel 11mo ago
    "Enable delay send - Allows you to undo sending emails for 5 minutes", I'd argue that a lot of people would enable that pretty fast. Keyboard shortcuts probably would work like I'd expect, people like me would go "Hell no, no keyboard shortcuts in browser application EVER", and power users would opt into that in an instant.
    - dexterdog 11mo ago
      Allow you to undo sending for 5 minutes means email delivery is delayed by 5 minutes.
      - kelnos 11mo ago
        It doesn't have to be 5 minutes. It could be 15 seconds. I've used that feature (in Fastmail), and find it very valuable.
        golem14 11mo ago
        I'm confused. Doesn't gmail offer an 'undo' for send by default ? At least for the last 5 years ? It's in General settings "Undo Send" and can be set up to 30 seconds ?
        Izkata 11mo ago
        And before that it was under the Labs experimental features, I think I enabled it in the late 2000s.
pera 11mo ago
I really wished they would also let you disable those very annoying modal popups announcing yet-another-chatbot-integration twice a week: My company is already paying for your product, just let me do my work ffs...
echelon 11mo ago
> You can disable all smart features For how long? You don't own the platform. Google PMs may decide to roll it out to everyone at some point to hit numbers.
- ctoth 11mo ago
  And this is generically true and always has been about every aspect of GMail? What would you suggest people do. Self-host? I'm just trying to understand why you posted this. It's generically true. Any company can change anything at any point. May as well just pack it up boys.
  - hdjrudni 11mo ago
    > I'm just trying to understand why you posted this. It's generically true. Any company can change anything at any point. May as well just pack it up boys. Yes, any SaaS can change any feature at any time. Some companies have different motives though. We're not paying for GMail. When customers pay a monthly subscription and can cancel at any time, you usually want to keep them happy. The internal motives are also different. Are employees promoted for just launching stuff? Are they running out of helpful features to launch?
  - skywhopper 11mo ago
    The point is to say that it’s bad and Google specifically can’t be trusted. It’s good to express disapproval of unethical business practices.
  - A_D_E_P_T 11mo ago
    You can't self-host these days -- your emails will get stuck in every kind of spam filter there is, and you'll always have cause to wonder if your emails are received by their intended recipients, or lost to the abyss. You've got to use either Gmail, Microsoft, Protonmail, etc. I don't love them, but Proton is probably the best of a bad bunch.
    - blibble 11mo ago
      > You can't self-host these days -- your emails will get stuck in every kind of spam filter there is, and you'll always have cause to wonder if your emails are received by their intended recipients, or lost to the abyss. this is not true unless you end up on an IP previously abused if you don't want to take on the risk at all, there's email services for pennies / thousand emails

adriand 11mo ago

I would really love it if there was a "smart setting" (or a dumb setting) to prevent people from sending me their drip marketing spam. The spam filtering in my personal Gmail is adequate, if not perfect (I really don't understand how the constant life insurance spam is getting through). But my main client uses Google Workspace or GSuite or whatever it is called these days, and my inbox for that email features a constant barrage of drip campaign garbage. Are Google's incentives misaligned in some way here? It's not like the heuristics are particularly difficult for this kind of email. Some of it even has unsubscribe links (I didn't subscribe), or, "If you don't want to hear from me again, just let me know", etc.

reaperducer 11mo ago
Some of it even has unsubscribe links (I didn't subscribe), or, "If you don't want to hear from me again, just let me know", etc. I don't know if this counts as "drip marketing" (a new term to me), but just this week Apple spammed me with some Apple Card offer for Hertz car rentals. No way to unsubscribe. No link. No mention of unsubscribing at all. And on the Apple Card web site, no way to turn off marketing emails. I wish you could still report these spam's to the FTC.

andrewl-hn 11mo ago

I run my email via imap and haven't seen GMail web UI for at least 15 years. Apple does some minor changes to Mail app but generally they follow "if it ain't broke don't fix it" motto, and I really appreciate that. Besides, I have email from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and FastMail in the same app, and I really appreciate that all email for me looks the same.

dmd 11mo ago
Good for you. 9999 out of 10,000 people don't know what a "gmail web UI" is, or even that there's something called email that is separate from the gmail web interface.
- justsomehnguy 11mo ago
  > web interface. Bold of you to think they know what is this. I have seen enough people who wholeheartedly though the things in their phone stays in it and you lose access to them if you move to another phone.
  - da_chicken 11mo ago
    You didn't read the post you responded to. The above poster is not talking to end users about the web interface. The poster is talking to you. About the fact that end users don't separate the interface from the thing. You are making the same argument with the same language to someone that made the same point.
- andrewl-hn 11mo ago
  True, and 10-20 years ago this seemed like a transitional issue: the world of technology was new and humanity needed time to adapt. Today I feel like some of this should be taught at school. Stuff like what is a browser, what is TLS, what are cookies, what is an email, what is phishing, etc. I know schools used to teach people Excel, Word and other office programs. Maybe they still do, and web should be a part of that curriculum.
- Marsymars 11mo ago

rcMgD2BwE72F 11mo ago

I turned on Fastmail and all the AI bullshit went away for good. No regrets.

Hammershaft 11mo ago
Very happy with fastmail. It's amazing how much better the user experience (and speed performance!) is.