[dlsa]

Going backwards and standing still often look the same. I think its both in this case to varying degrees. Google is competing against itself, obvious competitors but also obvious refinements that appear so regardless of actually being implemented. The no-login filter is a refinement that would be useful to many.

There are so many obvious improvements that could be made to gmail but there's no real way to do them as a consumer.

[mrjin]

Googles priorities have been long shifted from products to money. They are now deliberately doing evil things for more money.

It is like taking small dose of drugs for fun, for sure it won't kill you immediately but it eventually will as people can hardly resist the temptation. Google has been came such a monster, even we know it's dying, but its momentum will keep it going for a very long time. And if it can correct its trajectory just a little bit, the collapsing process will be even longer.

[ornornor]

> It is like taking small dose of drugs for fun, for sure it won't kill you immediately but it eventually will as people can hardly resist the temptation.

Very debatable.

[beebeepka]

No fun allowed. Or the implication is taking drugs for anything but recreation won't kill you. I need more guidance!

[ornornor]

Taking drugs for fun won’t necessarily make you an addict or kill you.

[mrjin]

Hmmm, only if you know when to stop and can actually stop, sure, no it won't kill you. But what if you cannot stop? Most importantly, I did not even mention which drug as those was never the point.

[ornornor]

> I did not even mention which drug

Exactly. Heroin is pretty addictive, pretty fast.

Otoh, there is no lethal dose that we know of for magic mushrooms (psylocibin). You can take a lot and have a hell of a trip but no one ever died from a psylocibin overdose. And it’s not addictive in the sense that you’ll get physical effects of you stop taking it. It builds a tolerance that will make it have much less effect if you take too much too often so it kinda takes care of the problem this way.

Alcohol which is freely available to any adult can make you addicted and will Jill you if you take too much of it.

What about sugar? We’re pretty much all addicted to it, and it can kill in the long term (obesity, diabetes…)

I’m not a drug expert but I think it’s very detrimental to say that all drugs are bad, they’ll make you an addict and kill you, and they’ll liquefy your brain. This is FUD and it results in shaming. It also creates abysmally poor public policy like the “war on drugs” which has been nothing but a colossal failure and a misery generating system.