> Which is to say incredibly hostile because people have come to view free Gmail accounts as a basic public service for which no payment will ever be required under any circumstances.
which is called entitlement. And i'm seeing more and more of this sense of entitlement as more and more people (esp. young people) being exposed to the internet - and this seeps into their other lives offline.
Let's not forget that Google's spam filtering racket has made it next to impossible to host your own email in any kind of practical manner, or even use many hosted email services effectively over the years.
This. I hosted my own email for over 15 years, and last year was the year I gave up. There was nothing wrong with my machine's IP, I was doing the right thing email server wise, but Gmail still didn't let me deliver. A racket is a good way of describing it.
Absolutely. I set up my own domain last year, hoping to run a mailserver directly off it. The whole thing was perfectly configured, but the 'some dude' IP address made it unusable. Eventually I moved the domain's hosting to Fastmail, and now the mail actually arrives.
Users may not switch (right away) but how we as a community talk about this problem can switch. This will ultimately help the problem get fixed when perceptions shift, either within Google or by new users evaluating other options given Google’s reputation of poor deliverability/interoperability.
Also I suspect a lot of Google’s early adopters will be switching away due to this change. These are the tech-savvy evangelists who helped build Google Apps to what it is, and can plausibly do it for another service too.
I don't think so and I'm not a fan of the "(esp. young people)" notion.
Since I can remember email services across Microsoft, Yahoo and Google have been free. It is completely okay for us to expect that to continue as it has been around for so long. Now if you want perhaps more premium features, or access to the entire suite of product then yes it is expected you would need to pay.
Let's not act like providing users with free email hasn't been beneficial for these companies either.
You do know they make money from you using Google Gmail because they serve ads. And you're probably logged in while you're searching and using other Google services so they know who you are and your history & they can show you better ads. Google actually does make money. If everyone is not logged in when they're using Google, Google will be less able to serve relevant ads and make less money.
Google has shown such "entitlement" on many occasions. Take, for one example, their idea that they are entitled to not pay Sonos for their technology which just came back to bite them. Of course it was Google's customers who ended up getting the short end of the stick.
> their idea that they are entitled to not pay Sonos for their technology
Might want to research that one. Sonos “technology” here is the idea that multiple speakers can be adjusted by one knob… but the knob happens to be software.
You're right. There are 5 garbage patents instead of one.
> 9195258: System and method for synchronizing operations among a multiplicity of digital data processing devices that are separately clocked
I am struggling to see merit. It reads like "devices can play music in sync if you send them the timing info" which is not novel. Maybe I'm missing something, but I am doubtful. The patent system is full of garbage and patents are written to be obtuse on purpose.
> 10209953: Playback device
The abstract is literally identical to the previous patent word for word. I don't think this should at all be considered a separate patent. Partly because the claims seem like garbage, but mostly because it's just more of the same from the first. This is written to be almost impossible to parse, but the first claim in English is "two devices on a LAN can connect and coordinate playback based on one device's clock". It's NTP. Sorry, it's "NTP, plus audio".
> 8588949: Method and apparatus for adjusting volume levels in a multi-zone system
One knob, multiple speakers. Old idea. Every smart home app has exactly this same concept for lights and speaker systems have done this for decades without the software. It is not novel.
> 9219959: Multi-channel pairing in a media system
Jesus Christ. "You can use multiple speakers to play multiple audio channels." It is not novel that your speakers can be "smart".
> 10439896: Playback device connection
Ugh. "You can use your phone to add a device."
None of this stuff is novel. The last one seems the most novel, but also not valid because it essentially describes part of the WPS protocol, but using an app instead of a router button.
I don't see that it's "entitlement" to think these are garbage. The software industry giants have fought a long time for the patent office to acknowledge software patents that are not actually novel. I honestly hope this crap starts to hurt them more and maybe they'll start pushing for reform. But probably not because the primary effect is to harm smaller competitors.
That they did. Per Google's press release for Google Apps:
>Furthermore, organizations that sign up during the beta period will not ever have to pay for users accepted during that period (provided Google continues to offer the service).
I signed up for my account 1 year after that... 15 years I have been on that account, 5 years I have been saying I need to de-google my life... 2022 Google gave me the shove in the ass I needed to pull that trigger...
Thanks Google, finally I have the motivation to end my relationship with you
I'm also in the same situation, I opted only because they offered it for free "Organizations that sign up during the beta period will not ever have to pay for users accepted during that period. "
Google should not set the wrong expectation right from the start. At that point in time, the impression I got is Google App is just a typical Gmail account with the additional feature of using custom domain with some administrative features.
And with what Google is doing today to Google Apps (now packaged as G Suite legacy free), there is nothing stopping Google from doing the same thing to the typical Gmail accounts as well.
Imagine you have been using your [email protected] for everything and is deeply integrated in you life. One fine day, Google bite back and also say you have to start paying to use [email protected], how does it sound? We don't own the gmail.com domain and we will be held ransom to stay or lose the email address if we don't want to pay.
So are we also wrong to have the expectation of entitlement that the normal Gmail account will be forever free to us (i.e. provided Google is still around)?
which is called entitlement. And i'm seeing more and more of this sense of entitlement as more and more people (esp. young people) being exposed to the internet - and this seeps into their other lives offline.