[sdrothrock]

We could probably think of alternatives for most of these things, but there are a lot of people who just use what came with their phone/browser.

Additionally, think of all of the Google-backed services out there provided by other companies. How many companies use gmail heavily that would lose all kinds of records?

Normal people would lose their e-mail too, and businessmen would lose a lot of their calendars. The actual solution doesn't matter as much as the data already invested in Google's solutions that would be lost if Google just vanished.

[latj]

The world wouldnt screech to a halt though. We're talking about what would happen if Google disappeared and its not a hypothetical situation. It happened in China for a five year period starting in 2010. People who used Google services were very upset. Replacements sprung up and quickly improved. They never caught up to Google but they were good enough, along with propaganda and the threat of prison, to keep people from making more of a commotion.

The biggest loss to humanity (in my opinion) would be all the translation data they hold privately. But Google really just people and money. If Google the entity disappeared tomorrow all those people who still know how to do the work will just start working on it elsewhere and catch up quickly.

[sdrothrock]

> We're talking about what would happen if Google disappeared and its not a hypothetical situation. It happened in China for a five year period starting in 2010.

My bad. I was thinking about what would happen if Google disappeared as in, one day their servers and services just aren't available for whatever reason, rather than a staged transition/fade out.

[smileysteve]

Critically

20 years ago, nobody could have pictured living without AOL, they had search, the directory, email, Aim - and connectivity.

15 years ago, few people could have seen a world without Yahoo.

3 months ago Dorsey said Twitter is an essential part of the internet.

[tedmiston]

And Google Takeout continues to ensure that won't happen.

[Thirdegree]

Only for people that proactively use it. Speaking of which, I should probably backup again.