logoalt Hacker News

encomyesterday at 10:30 PM1 replyview on HN

Google is almost cartoonishly evil these days. I think that's pretty much an established fact at this point.

I'm not using Gmail, and I don't understand why anyone would voluntarily. It was the worst email client I'd ever used, until I had to use Outlook at my new job.

The only Google products I use are YouTube, because that's where the content is. And Android, because IOS is garbage and Apple is only marginally less evil than Google.


Replies

schrodingeryesterday at 11:27 PM

I’ve recently begun using my personal domain as my primary email address, with it forwarding to gmail so I can “get out” easily if I ever had a reason. That said, I’ve found Gmail’s service great, their spam filtering highly effective, (although I haven’t surveyed the competition lately so it’s possible their huge advantage no longer exists) and their features pretty user-friendly (eg the one-click unsubscribe as well as a page to view all your subs in one place). I have never felt like they _abused_ the immense amount of data they have about me nor used it for “evil” purposes; only to profit on relevant ads that are at least clearly marked and unobtrusive. I don’t like that they have so much data on me, but I’ve felt like they’ve been transparent about it, so it’s been on me for making a decision eyes wide open. As opposed to Meta and the shady shit they’ve been caught doing...

That said, I’m open-minded and obviously thinking about this given moving to my own domain.

What’s the evil behavior you’ve experienced? I’m down to move off if I’m oblivious to something…