6 ms·

> They've essentially gotten roped into maintaining a huge chunk of internet infrastructure, for free. I’ll stop you here. Google offered it for free and, at t

by redserk 4mo ago

> They've essentially gotten roped into maintaining a huge chunk of internet infrastructure, for free. I’ll stop you here. Google offered it for free and, at the time, offered such an high amount of mail storage for free it sounded insane. At the time, my ISP gave me a 25MB or 50MB inbox and that was considered pretty decent, when Google was trying to get people in with 1-2GB. They absolutely have a right to take ant steps they deem necessary to prevent malicious use of their product, and certainly aren’t obligated to provide it for free, but Google wasn’t forced to provide a free email service, much less one that went so far above and beyond their competition.

benoliver999 4mo ago
I remember in the early days you could watch your storage quota go up in real time.
- jjordan 4mo ago
  Back when Google was still fun and innovating. Enshittification consumes all.
  - scottyah 4mo ago
    also, people changed. Seems like nobody wants to see cute fun stuff anymore. I bet they'd get lawsuits of people claiming false advertising since the numbers aren't strictly true.
bachmeier 4mo ago
> and certainly aren’t obligated to provide it for free And I'll stop you here. It's less than obvious that there's no obligation. If you provide a critical service that folks rely on at a price less than your cost, you drive out competition, and it's a critical part of your own business model, dropping the service without warning is IMO on the border of what Google should be allowed to do.
- motbus3 4mo ago
  Yeah! I can't believe people know basics about cartels, trusts and dumping.
  - idle_zealot 4mo ago
    It does feel like a lot of very intelligent people here basically start at a first principles belief in property rights, and discover or dispute all of the rights and protections put in place over centuries to patch up the issues that occur when that philosophy meets reality. It reflects poorly on our education systems that these apparently weren't covered or were unconvincing when presented. Or maybe it's just a reflection of the era? In practice organizations seem to be repealing these protections through limited interpretations or loopholes, so maybe that skews people's expectations?
    - donkyrf 4mo ago
      [flagged]
      - idle_zealot 4mo ago
        That our education system wasn't resilient to that well-funded propaganda machine is what reflects poorly on it. That such a machine is allowed to exist reflects poorly on our institutions more broadly. I'll never blame human greed. Systems are designed for humans, if they fail to account for human nature then they're bad systems. I'm not really interested in litigating whether humans as a species are bad.
        Barrin92 4mo ago
        >Systems are designed for humans They also happen to be designed by humans, and if you're just begging to have the system fix people's beliefs about corporate greed for you but don't think people themselves are at fault I have no idea why you'd think the systems would be fixed. Always these complains about corporations or systems or institutions, the responsible person is never "I". If you're unwilling to take responsibility for your institutions why do you think they'd fix your problems? The beauty is people always get the institutions and rulers they deserve, it's not some mysterious system that allows these things to happen, it's you and I.
axegon_ 4mo ago
Not only that. I was probably not even a teenager or barely a teenager when registering a gmail was not as simple as clicking "sign up". You needed someone to refer you and upon registration you got 25 referrals in return. Needless to say, entirely ditched gmail forever ago and use it as a spam mail. They can have all the fun they want training slop on that.
ccppurcell 4mo ago
Also they make it really difficult to mass delete stuff. I'm basically stuck paying for their storage because I don't really have the skills to self host (but I'm working on it!)
- bigfatkitten 4mo ago
  They make it impossible to delete stuff if you stop paying! I was on Google Workspace for about 10 years. I moved off their service because the mandatory Gemini price hikes meant that it no longer represented value for money. I get excessive storage utilisation warnings for some shared drives I used to have but because I no longer have a paid up license, I can’t manage shared drives anymore. So I can’t delete them. Google’s “support” team in India told me all sorts of lies about how to resolve the issue, but they’ve finally settled on a position that I would need to reinstate my Workspace account, at my own expense in order to delete the data to stop the emails and save Google money. They refuse to acknowledge the patent absurdity of this situation and escalate it to someone who can actually fix it.
  - eks391 4mo ago
    Google has support?? How did you find it, and what other services besides gmail does it cover?
    - vel0city 4mo ago
      Note they said "workspace". This has some level of support baked in, as this is the paid enterprise product. https://knowledge.workspace.google.com/admin/support/contact-google-workspace-support https://knowledge.workspace.google.com/admin/support/contact...
      - bigfatkitten 4mo ago
        They call it support, but that’s not the term I would use.
  - ValentineC 4mo ago
MichaelRo 4mo ago
> They've essentially gotten roped into maintaining a huge chunk of internet infrastructure, for free. This argument would have flown 30 years ago with Yahoo. Since then we had Uber pumping so much money into a losing business until it drew the competition bankrupt. And now we have AI pumping so much money into a losing business until they hopefully replicate Uber, only won't work and signs are all over the wall that they just burned a trillion dollars. Which opens great prospectives for incumbents WHO LEARN FROM THE MISTAKES of the powers be at the time. About time to start a "Don't be evil. FOR REAL." This time. If in 30 years it's necessary to start "Don't be evil. REALLY, REALLY, REALLY this time" then so be it. I'm starting the 2.0 version. Fuck AI. Fuck incumbents. Long live long life and freedom of choice!
- hn_acc1 4mo ago
  I find your views interesting and wish to subscribe to your newsletter. No really - got more ideas about "Don't be evil. FOR REAL"?
  - MichaelRo 4mo ago
    Don't have an online presence yet, will let you know when I add that.
- alex1138 4mo ago
  (Please understand I'm being sarcastic. You should interpret this post as a joke) Hi. I'm a VC bigwig and I'm very interested in purchasing your company. I, too, believe in Not Being Evil
gerdesj 4mo ago
"when Google was trying to get people in with 1-2GB." The G in Gmail was for a gigabyte and that was what I got in the noughties for "free", when as you say my ISP offered something like 5MB on the end of a POP connection. To be fair you can cram a lot of ASCII into 5MB. However you can email piccies to a mailbox with a 1GB limit if your modem doesn't melt first. Obviously, this was during the "don't be evil" days.
- autoexec 4mo ago
  Even then the reason they were giving people so much storage space was because they wanted people to get in the habit of keeping their private data on Google's servers so that Google could mine it whenever they felt like it. Giving users effectively unlimited space was a selfish move on Google's part, not a gift.
anjel 4mo ago
Try signing up for a Google Gemini Paid account with a third party email... Better still, try signing up for a Gemini Paid account with a registered android phone that isn't triangulated to a desktop. If they can't own you, they don't want you at all.
bmitc 4mo ago
Google's annual revenue is $350 billion. I can't believe someone would feel bad for such a company, because as you pointed out, this entire Gmail thing is part of the reason they have that revenue. Google has done nothing but be a wolf in sheep's clothing. I'm not going to shed a tear because they have to maintain an email service.

by redserk 4mo ago

benoliver999 4mo ago

I remember in the early days you could watch your storage quota go up in real time.

jjordan 4mo ago
Back when Google was still fun and innovating. Enshittification consumes all.
- scottyah 4mo ago
  also, people changed. Seems like nobody wants to see cute fun stuff anymore. I bet they'd get lawsuits of people claiming false advertising since the numbers aren't strictly true.

bachmeier 4mo ago

> and certainly aren’t obligated to provide it for free And I'll stop you here. It's less than obvious that there's no obligation. If you provide a critical service that folks rely on at a price less than your cost, you drive out competition, and it's a critical part of your own business model, dropping the service without warning is IMO on the border of what Google should be allowed to do.

motbus3 4mo ago
Yeah! I can't believe people know basics about cartels, trusts and dumping.
- idle_zealot 4mo ago
  It does feel like a lot of very intelligent people here basically start at a first principles belief in property rights, and discover or dispute all of the rights and protections put in place over centuries to patch up the issues that occur when that philosophy meets reality. It reflects poorly on our education systems that these apparently weren't covered or were unconvincing when presented. Or maybe it's just a reflection of the era? In practice organizations seem to be repealing these protections through limited interpretations or loopholes, so maybe that skews people's expectations?
  - donkyrf 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    - idle_zealot 4mo ago
      That our education system wasn't resilient to that well-funded propaganda machine is what reflects poorly on it. That such a machine is allowed to exist reflects poorly on our institutions more broadly. I'll never blame human greed. Systems are designed for humans, if they fail to account for human nature then they're bad systems. I'm not really interested in litigating whether humans as a species are bad.
      - Barrin92 4mo ago
        >Systems are designed for humans They also happen to be designed by humans, and if you're just begging to have the system fix people's beliefs about corporate greed for you but don't think people themselves are at fault I have no idea why you'd think the systems would be fixed. Always these complains about corporations or systems or institutions, the responsible person is never "I". If you're unwilling to take responsibility for your institutions why do you think they'd fix your problems? The beauty is people always get the institutions and rulers they deserve, it's not some mysterious system that allows these things to happen, it's you and I.

axegon_ 4mo ago

Not only that. I was probably not even a teenager or barely a teenager when registering a gmail was not as simple as clicking "sign up". You needed someone to refer you and upon registration you got 25 referrals in return. Needless to say, entirely ditched gmail forever ago and use it as a spam mail. They can have all the fun they want training slop on that.

ccppurcell 4mo ago

Also they make it really difficult to mass delete stuff. I'm basically stuck paying for their storage because I don't really have the skills to self host (but I'm working on it!)

bigfatkitten 4mo ago
They make it impossible to delete stuff if you stop paying! I was on Google Workspace for about 10 years. I moved off their service because the mandatory Gemini price hikes meant that it no longer represented value for money. I get excessive storage utilisation warnings for some shared drives I used to have but because I no longer have a paid up license, I can’t manage shared drives anymore. So I can’t delete them. Google’s “support” team in India told me all sorts of lies about how to resolve the issue, but they’ve finally settled on a position that I would need to reinstate my Workspace account, at my own expense in order to delete the data to stop the emails and save Google money. They refuse to acknowledge the patent absurdity of this situation and escalate it to someone who can actually fix it.
- eks391 4mo ago
  Google has support?? How did you find it, and what other services besides gmail does it cover?
  - vel0city 4mo ago
    Note they said "workspace". This has some level of support baked in, as this is the paid enterprise product. https://knowledge.workspace.google.com/admin/support/contact-google-workspace-support https://knowledge.workspace.google.com/admin/support/contact...
    - bigfatkitten 4mo ago
      They call it support, but that’s not the term I would use.
- ValentineC 4mo ago

MichaelRo 4mo ago

> They've essentially gotten roped into maintaining a huge chunk of internet infrastructure, for free. This argument would have flown 30 years ago with Yahoo. Since then we had Uber pumping so much money into a losing business until it drew the competition bankrupt. And now we have AI pumping so much money into a losing business until they hopefully replicate Uber, only won't work and signs are all over the wall that they just burned a trillion dollars. Which opens great prospectives for incumbents WHO LEARN FROM THE MISTAKES of the powers be at the time. About time to start a "Don't be evil. FOR REAL." This time. If in 30 years it's necessary to start "Don't be evil. REALLY, REALLY, REALLY this time" then so be it. I'm starting the 2.0 version. Fuck AI. Fuck incumbents. Long live long life and freedom of choice!

hn_acc1 4mo ago
I find your views interesting and wish to subscribe to your newsletter. No really - got more ideas about "Don't be evil. FOR REAL"?
- MichaelRo 4mo ago
  Don't have an online presence yet, will let you know when I add that.
alex1138 4mo ago
(Please understand I'm being sarcastic. You should interpret this post as a joke) Hi. I'm a VC bigwig and I'm very interested in purchasing your company. I, too, believe in Not Being Evil

gerdesj 4mo ago

"when Google was trying to get people in with 1-2GB." The G in Gmail was for a gigabyte and that was what I got in the noughties for "free", when as you say my ISP offered something like 5MB on the end of a POP connection. To be fair you can cram a lot of ASCII into 5MB. However you can email piccies to a mailbox with a 1GB limit if your modem doesn't melt first. Obviously, this was during the "don't be evil" days.

autoexec 4mo ago
Even then the reason they were giving people so much storage space was because they wanted people to get in the habit of keeping their private data on Google's servers so that Google could mine it whenever they felt like it. Giving users effectively unlimited space was a selfish move on Google's part, not a gift.

anjel 4mo ago

Try signing up for a Google Gemini Paid account with a third party email... Better still, try signing up for a Gemini Paid account with a registered android phone that isn't triangulated to a desktop. If they can't own you, they don't want you at all.

bmitc 4mo ago

Google's annual revenue is $350 billion. I can't believe someone would feel bad for such a company, because as you pointed out, this entire Gmail thing is part of the reason they have that revenue. Google has done nothing but be a wolf in sheep's clothing. I'm not going to shed a tear because they have to maintain an email service.