5 ms·

This is simple: Don't use google Services, if you do not pay for it. (EDIT: Search is not meant) GoogleReader is best example, Google has actually become evil.

by mablae 13y ago

This is simple: Don't use google Services, if you do not pay for it. (EDIT: Search is not meant) GoogleReader is best example, Google has actually become evil. @fabpot Did you take a look at Discourse?

lucb1e 13y ago
Don't use Google services, especially for business purposes. Paid support is about as good as free support at Google.
- lucaspiller 13y ago
  We use Google Apps for Business (the paid one), and the support we have had with that has been great. We even got Google to phone us and talk us through an issue we were having!
  - PhilipA 13y ago
    Try and listen to yourself. You sound really excited because you paid for their service, and even got to talk to an employee at the office when you had a problem. Think about if other companies would treat you like this, then good support would not be the word to use...
    - kyrias 13y ago
      Have you ever had to talk to any support? They gereraly tend to be crap.
      - PhilipA 13y ago
        Yes, but the main point is that there is a point of contact. It is easier to get hold of God than Google...
        lucb1e 13y ago
        Funny analogy. I guess many would even say it's really true ;)
      - lucb1e 13y ago
        I have talked to support, and yes they tend to be quite crappy. I only know two companies doing it right. They're usually the underdogs on the market, providing the same service as their bigger competitors only much better and with better support. Xs4all is an ISP in the Netherlands, not one of the biggest but definitely one of the best. Spotify advertised so much that they worked Grooveshark out of the market, but Grooveshark's support is sublime and they're also cheaper than Spotify. Most companies have "almost acceptable" support. You can talk to someone, they talk back, and most of the time (not always) they can solve your problem within 40 minutes of waiting on the phone and forwarding you to 6 others. Then there are companies like Google and Microsoft. They deliver products, not support. Having trouble with Windows? Try talking to whoever delivered your pc. Not those who made the product and know everything about it, instead you talk to the person who sold you the system. That's like asking a 17-year-old working in a supermarket about why the doctor prescribed a product of theirs. Smart move by the doctor though, he makes way more money when you come in than when he explains his prescription to you on the phone.
        kyrias 13y ago
        Microsoft actually tend to have pretty good support.
      - snowwrestler 13y ago
        In most companies you can access better support by paying more. The frustrating thing about Google is that they do not offer this option for most of their products.
        PeterisP 13y ago
        In most companies, even the "better" support is utterly useless. And I'm saying that about cases where we were paying seven figure fees annually for that support.
  - hp50g 13y ago
    You should try Microsoft support. Straight through to a human who knows what they are talking about without waiting EVERY TIME. Not only that, Office even works ENTIRELY offline. And it opens all our documents absolutely perfectly EVERY TINE. Yes this is facetious: Google have forced peoples standards down.
    - wladimir 13y ago
      I'm probably the least fan of Microsoft in the world, but I have to agree with you on that. More generally, cloud products are extremely convenient on the surface, but beneath the water there is an iceberg of trouble. Especially when you don't have your own backups of the data, as usual with these kind of services. Outages, unexplained data loss, services being shut down, users being locked out for unrelated reasons (oh you didn't put your real name in G+?), unexpected changes to the interface and software, the list goes on. The vendor lock-in is even worse than when using closed-source software with DRM. At least you can keep running those (if necessary in an emulator) when discontinued, or reverse engineer them...
      - OGinparadise 13y ago
        More generally, cloud products are extremely convenient on the surface, but beneath the water there is an iceberg of trouble. Or cloud services are great, until it rains ;)
    - mseebach 13y ago
      You left out the bit where Google invested massively in one of the few credible alternatives to Office, and forced Microsoft to reengineer their products to enable online collaboration. So, it's a step or two backwards on support and a leap forward on functionality and access (You can get fully functional Google Docs for free, just not on your own domain, Office 365 seems to be £80/year).
      - scholia 13y ago
        You can also get free Microsoft Office apps in SkyDive, which are actually better than Google Docs (and don't screw up your documents). These apps don't need an Office 365 sub. Despite the name, Office 365 isn't really about Office -- you already have it -- it's selling web-based SharePoint and other services.
  - flyinRyan 13y ago
    Thanks for the anecdote. Statistically, though, Google has no support.
Seldaek 13y ago
We did consider Discourse and phpBB as migration options, but it seems there is no solution that will make everyone happy (there already is a forum in parallel to the mailing list actually). Many people like the mailing list concept and like to manage all this in their inbox. Obviously switching to a self-hosted mailman is an option too. But having no access whatsoever to the group, migration is kind of a pain since you have no way of even contacting everyone that was subscribed.
- joelcox 13y ago
  Did you look into Librelist[0]? They also offer rsync access to your archives, so making backups is trivial. [0] http://librelist.com/ http://librelist.com/
- petenixey 13y ago
  I guess you mostly want to fix your current problem but if it's of interest in the longer term, we're building an email-based tool to not only handle the mailing lists but also help turn their content into documentation - http://copyin.com http://copyin.com. We're going to be rolling this out with a number of Rails and Android open-source projects and if you'd be interested in speaking it would be great to include you guys. If would be of help please feel free to contact me directly: peter dot nixey at copyin dot com.
Sujan 13y ago
Yeah, that's really helpful to him now. Solves all his problems... </sarcasm>
nickporter 13y ago
Shutting down a free service that they own... evil?
- gnaffle 13y ago
  If Starbucks invaded your city and used their cash pile to give away free coffee for years until there were no more independent coffee bars left, and then suddenly decided to close up shop leaving you with no decent coffee bars, would that make them evil? At least it would make them careless and insensitive. A better option would be to a) charge a price and compete fairly in the first place, or b) open source or sell off the product so it could live on.
  - andyhmltn 13y ago
    Open source coffee. We could be on to something...
    - gnaffle 13y ago
      Here you go: http://code.google.com/p/artisan/ http://code.google.com/p/artisan/
  - icebraining 13y ago
    Assuming Starbucks coffee wasn't the crap it is, I'd be glad if they did so. New coffee bars can and would be opened once they left anyway, and until then, we'd get free coffee. Seems like an excellent deal to me. In any case, "Starbucks" didn't prevent me from having some good homemade coffee for a few months now.
    - dugmartin 13y ago
      The problem is that after so many years of free coffee almost nobody will want to pay for it again.
      - digitalsushi 13y ago
qompiler 13y ago
This is why I don't understand why people use services like Google Hosted Libraries, it's a matter of time someone at Google pulls the plug or messes up breaking your website in the process.
davedevelopment 13y ago
This is a bit different to the Reader scenario. They're not shutting down Google Groups, they've shut down one particular group, without explanation. I think the symfony community would be happy if we could just get to the data to move.
- mablae 13y ago
  It's not: Google doesn't care about its users in both cases.
  - sbuk 13y ago
    I wouldn't say that they don't care. They certainly appear not to prioritise the customer, who when selling services should always be the single most important priority.
mseebach 13y ago
The flipside is that companies, even ones as massively profitable as Google, should not offer free services. Why isn't search meant? What about GMail? Millions and millions of people benefit from a simple, free e-mail account with world-class spam protection. Is this also 'simple'? You advice to all these people is that they should pay up or leave? Or should they just live with the risk that sometimes things change? Here's the thing: Even paid-for services can end up being a nuisance that you want to divest.

by mablae 13y ago

lucb1e 13y ago

Don't use Google services, especially for business purposes. Paid support is about as good as free support at Google.

lucaspiller 13y ago
We use Google Apps for Business (the paid one), and the support we have had with that has been great. We even got Google to phone us and talk us through an issue we were having!
- PhilipA 13y ago
  Try and listen to yourself. You sound really excited because you paid for their service, and even got to talk to an employee at the office when you had a problem. Think about if other companies would treat you like this, then good support would not be the word to use...
  - kyrias 13y ago
    Have you ever had to talk to any support? They gereraly tend to be crap.
    - PhilipA 13y ago
      Yes, but the main point is that there is a point of contact. It is easier to get hold of God than Google...
      - lucb1e 13y ago
        Funny analogy. I guess many would even say it's really true ;)
    - lucb1e 13y ago
      I have talked to support, and yes they tend to be quite crappy. I only know two companies doing it right. They're usually the underdogs on the market, providing the same service as their bigger competitors only much better and with better support. Xs4all is an ISP in the Netherlands, not one of the biggest but definitely one of the best. Spotify advertised so much that they worked Grooveshark out of the market, but Grooveshark's support is sublime and they're also cheaper than Spotify. Most companies have "almost acceptable" support. You can talk to someone, they talk back, and most of the time (not always) they can solve your problem within 40 minutes of waiting on the phone and forwarding you to 6 others. Then there are companies like Google and Microsoft. They deliver products, not support. Having trouble with Windows? Try talking to whoever delivered your pc. Not those who made the product and know everything about it, instead you talk to the person who sold you the system. That's like asking a 17-year-old working in a supermarket about why the doctor prescribed a product of theirs. Smart move by the doctor though, he makes way more money when you come in than when he explains his prescription to you on the phone.
      - kyrias 13y ago
        Microsoft actually tend to have pretty good support.
    - snowwrestler 13y ago
      In most companies you can access better support by paying more. The frustrating thing about Google is that they do not offer this option for most of their products.
      - PeterisP 13y ago
        In most companies, even the "better" support is utterly useless. And I'm saying that about cases where we were paying seven figure fees annually for that support.
- hp50g 13y ago
  You should try Microsoft support. Straight through to a human who knows what they are talking about without waiting EVERY TIME. Not only that, Office even works ENTIRELY offline. And it opens all our documents absolutely perfectly EVERY TINE. Yes this is facetious: Google have forced peoples standards down.
  - wladimir 13y ago
    I'm probably the least fan of Microsoft in the world, but I have to agree with you on that. More generally, cloud products are extremely convenient on the surface, but beneath the water there is an iceberg of trouble. Especially when you don't have your own backups of the data, as usual with these kind of services. Outages, unexplained data loss, services being shut down, users being locked out for unrelated reasons (oh you didn't put your real name in G+?), unexpected changes to the interface and software, the list goes on. The vendor lock-in is even worse than when using closed-source software with DRM. At least you can keep running those (if necessary in an emulator) when discontinued, or reverse engineer them...
    - OGinparadise 13y ago
      More generally, cloud products are extremely convenient on the surface, but beneath the water there is an iceberg of trouble. Or cloud services are great, until it rains ;)
  - mseebach 13y ago
    You left out the bit where Google invested massively in one of the few credible alternatives to Office, and forced Microsoft to reengineer their products to enable online collaboration. So, it's a step or two backwards on support and a leap forward on functionality and access (You can get fully functional Google Docs for free, just not on your own domain, Office 365 seems to be £80/year).
    - scholia 13y ago
      You can also get free Microsoft Office apps in SkyDive, which are actually better than Google Docs (and don't screw up your documents). These apps don't need an Office 365 sub. Despite the name, Office 365 isn't really about Office -- you already have it -- it's selling web-based SharePoint and other services.
- flyinRyan 13y ago
  Thanks for the anecdote. Statistically, though, Google has no support.

Seldaek 13y ago

We did consider Discourse and phpBB as migration options, but it seems there is no solution that will make everyone happy (there already is a forum in parallel to the mailing list actually). Many people like the mailing list concept and like to manage all this in their inbox. Obviously switching to a self-hosted mailman is an option too. But having no access whatsoever to the group, migration is kind of a pain since you have no way of even contacting everyone that was subscribed.

joelcox 13y ago
Did you look into Librelist[0]? They also offer rsync access to your archives, so making backups is trivial. [0] http://librelist.com/ http://librelist.com/
petenixey 13y ago
I guess you mostly want to fix your current problem but if it's of interest in the longer term, we're building an email-based tool to not only handle the mailing lists but also help turn their content into documentation - http://copyin.com http://copyin.com. We're going to be rolling this out with a number of Rails and Android open-source projects and if you'd be interested in speaking it would be great to include you guys. If would be of help please feel free to contact me directly: peter dot nixey at copyin dot com.

Sujan 13y ago

Yeah, that's really helpful to him now. Solves all his problems... </sarcasm>

nickporter 13y ago

Shutting down a free service that they own... evil?

gnaffle 13y ago
If Starbucks invaded your city and used their cash pile to give away free coffee for years until there were no more independent coffee bars left, and then suddenly decided to close up shop leaving you with no decent coffee bars, would that make them evil? At least it would make them careless and insensitive. A better option would be to a) charge a price and compete fairly in the first place, or b) open source or sell off the product so it could live on.
- andyhmltn 13y ago
  Open source coffee. We could be on to something...
  - gnaffle 13y ago
    Here you go: http://code.google.com/p/artisan/ http://code.google.com/p/artisan/
- icebraining 13y ago
  Assuming Starbucks coffee wasn't the crap it is, I'd be glad if they did so. New coffee bars can and would be opened once they left anyway, and until then, we'd get free coffee. Seems like an excellent deal to me. In any case, "Starbucks" didn't prevent me from having some good homemade coffee for a few months now.
  - dugmartin 13y ago
    The problem is that after so many years of free coffee almost nobody will want to pay for it again.
    - digitalsushi 13y ago

qompiler 13y ago

This is why I don't understand why people use services like Google Hosted Libraries, it's a matter of time someone at Google pulls the plug or messes up breaking your website in the process.

davedevelopment 13y ago

This is a bit different to the Reader scenario. They're not shutting down Google Groups, they've shut down one particular group, without explanation. I think the symfony community would be happy if we could just get to the data to move.

mablae 13y ago
It's not: Google doesn't care about its users in both cases.
- sbuk 13y ago
  I wouldn't say that they don't care. They certainly appear not to prioritise the customer, who when selling services should always be the single most important priority.

mseebach 13y ago

The flipside is that companies, even ones as massively profitable as Google, should not offer free services. Why isn't search meant? What about GMail? Millions and millions of people benefit from a simple, free e-mail account with world-class spam protection. Is this also 'simple'? You advice to all these people is that they should pay up or leave? Or should they just live with the risk that sometimes things change? Here's the thing: Even paid-for services can end up being a nuisance that you want to divest.