[embedding-shape]

> People consider google as a trusted partner

Haha, what "people"? Even people who aren't computer techies seems to be aware having a Google account is "a privilege lost at any time for any reason", almost everyone seems to know at least one acquaintance that somehow lost access to their personal account at one point and if you bring up any Google products in discussions, it isn't uncommon to hear "Yeah, I'd give that a try if I want to use a product that only works for a year".

Not sure there are many people left treating Google as a "trusted partner" unless you have a multi-million deal/contact with them.

[goalieca]

I know more people than not who have gmail as their primary email.. the one that _every_ other account and bank and government service sends out to. It's not exactly well known that there are challenges for account recovery etc.

[SoftTalker]

I have a gmail account that is connected to my Android phone. I don't use it for anything else, so it's unlikely that I would run afoul of Google for anything I do with it.

Any hosted email, paid or free, is going to have terms and conditions and you will be able to find anecdotes from people whose service was suspended "for no reason" but it's that or buy your own domain and host your own email.

[swores]

> it's that or buy your own domain and host your own email.

Those aren't the only two options, there are two in the middle ground (and perhaps more that I'm failing to think of) that are well worth considering.

Option 1:

The best option IMO (what I chose, anyway) is to buy your own domain, and point its DNS MX records to a reliable email provider, which can even be gmail (though they're not who I chose).

That way you get almost none of the hassle of hosting your own email - it's very quick to set up the DNS records when you first get the domain, easy enough that even non-tech people can follow a simple tutorial, and after that you don't have anything to manage - and you don't need to worry about whether your emails will look trustworthy enough to avoid going straight into most people's spam folders (so long as you pick a provider that most of the world's email servers do tend to trust, such as gmail).

But if you do get locked out by the email provider you choose, you can point the DNS records at a different provider and not have lost your address. Obviously it's slightly more expensive than using gmail for free, but it's fairly cheap, affordable for many people (though not everyone).

Option 2:

Alternatively, if you need to stick to a free solution, you could create a free account at two different providers (let's say Protonmail and Gmail, or Hotmail and Yahoo, or...); have one of them as your primary email account, that you use like normal, but use the other one for signing up to accounts that would be a problem to lose ability to receive emails from.

Have the second account set up to automatically forward everything to your primary account. That way, when you need to click an email verification link, or open a password reset email, or whatever, it will have been forwarded to the inbox you use normally, so there's no extra hassle. But if you do lose access to your main account, you can still login to the account that receives the important emails to access them directly and to change it to forward to a new primary account elsewhere.

Of course there's still technically a risk that your important emails account could also be shut, but if you are only using it to receive emails from companies that you create accounts with, and you're never sending anything from it nor using it for any other services (ie not also using it for YouTube or similar) then the chances of losing access are almost as low as the chances of that business completely disappearing without warning.

[acka]

Note that you need to be on a paid Google Workspace plan before pointing your DNS MX records at Gmail as provider, or else your emails will either be rejected at best or simply vanish into thin air in the worst case.

[swores]

Oops yeah I forgot to state that, thanks for pointing it out.

There are cheaper options than Google Workspace (which is £11.80/month) for quality email hosts for your custom domain though - like FastMail (£4.50/month), ProtonMail (£8.19/month), or Microsoft 365 Business Basic (£5.52/month).

Personally I think it's a price well worth paying for knowing you genuinely own your own email address (while not having to manage both the software and the reputation of your own email server) - even more so if you either have friends/family to share the cost with (one domain cost between you, and potentially discounted per-account cost for multiple users depending on the plans available from the various email host options, such as Fastmail family going as low as $2.33/user/month), or if you also want other services bundled with email (such as Google Workspace's other tools, or Office 365 software, etc)

But for anyone who can't afford it, the free alternative of Option 2 from my comment above is still a big upgrade on just relying on a single account for everything.

[Wingy]

I believe Apple’s iCloud+ option is $0.99/month.

[hilbert42]

"Not sure there are many people left treating Google as a "trusted partner" …"

Trouble is that whilst many have realized that Google (like much of Big Tech) is the quintessential example of a Poisoned Chalice they remain all too aware they've little choice but to endure or risk unavoidable abuse.

The tragedy of the modern internet is that these monopolies have reduced competition and choice to irrelevancies.

[netsharc]

Cloud feudalism. The feudal decides what rules to apply, their reasoning is opaque and the protests of their subjects don't reach them. One day the feudal can confiscate all your possessions within his territory and banish you from his reign, for whatever reason. You can ask the feudal's henchmen for redress but they can ignore you or just tell you bullshit.

Sometimes protests that reach enough crowd get heard and the problem gets fixed...

[hilbert42]

"Sometimes protests that reach enough crowd get heard and the problem gets fixed..."

That's the stuff of revolution. Feudalists don't listen until forced to under duress, that's when things usually turn very nasty—shades of 1789 and like. The Ancien Régime sans a head or two.

Feudalists all have certain traits in common: arrogance and a sense of superiority coupled with shortsightedness and a lack of empathy.

[danaris]

I...think you may be in a bubble if you believe this.

I've never talked to anyone outside of tech circles like this that has any inkling that Google just shutters people's digital lives with no warning or recourse.

In general, with any kind of mainstream large company, you should assume that the overall public perception of them is that they're fine, of course, if they weren't why would they be so big and popular??

[SoftTalker]

> I've never talked to anyone outside of tech circles like this that has any inkling that Google just shutters people's digital lives with no warning or recourse.

Because they generally don't do this. The people who get suspended are not just normies using gmail. They are (as in this case) running complicated services doing a lot of access to Google APIs and though likely with no bad intent are activating tripwires that Google has set up to detect abuse.

[raincole]

Even for people in tech using Gmail as the primary email is still quite common. Outside of tech Google is perceived as utility like tap water.

[LorenPechtel]

Only if you're not paying attention. Case comes to mind, their AI decided it was child sexual abuse images. No, it was a picture of their toddler's penis being sent to his pediatrician. The cops cleared him, last I heard he remains banned by Google.

[danaris]

Right. That's exactly my point. Most people are not paying attention to these things. That's tech news; it's only for nerds and IT people (but I repeat myself).

If you think about Google, even about the possibility of Google banning an account, and a story like that is the first thing that comes to your mind, you are already an outlier. We all are here.

[embedding-shape]

> I've never talked to anyone outside of tech circles like this that has any inkling that Google just shutters people's digital lives with no warning or recourse.

I thought I was specific enough but seems maybe I wasn't clear enough. I'm specifically talking about "outside of tech circles" (hence the "Even people who aren't computer techies"). I'm talking about acquaintances that works in retail stores, gas stations and similar, even these people seem averse to Google today when I've chatted with them about it for unrelated reasons.

Maybe it's because this is in Europe and people generally have more measured views of US companies, especially as of late? Not sure how it looks/seems in other parts in the world, but since I'm bound to one location, I definitely live in some sort of local bubble here like everyone else on this earth, not gonna lie :)

[esseph]

Yeah, at least here in the US that isn't the perception. For most people it's not even something they think about.

[Spunkie]

    > Haha, what "people"?

I mean most people and business treat google as a "trust partner".

You should see the sideways looks I get from people when they find out I backup all our gmail to another service and don't allow employees to use Google SSO logins for sites. Just encase googles 'fraud' bots randomly shut down our workspace. I don't want the entire business to ground to a halt because we can't login to any sites.

[anotherevan]

Curious about how you do your Workspace backups - in particular Drive if you use it, but all services that you use.

[kovezd]

That was not a person, it was an LLM.

[embedding-shape]

Not doubting you, but what possible purpose could anyone have to use LLMs to output HN comments? Hardly exists a lower-stakes environment than here :) But yeah, I guess it wouldn't be the first time I reply to LLM-generated comments...

[LightBug1]

Ha — fair point. Hacker News comments are about as low-stakes as it gets, at least in terms of real-world consequence. But there are a few reasons someone might still use an LLM for HN-style comments:

Practice or experimentation – Some folks test models by having them participate in “realistic” online discussions to see if they can blend in, reason well, or emulate community tone.

Engagement farming – A few users or bots might automate posting to build karma or drive attention to a linked product or blog.

Time-saving for lurkers – Some people who read HN a lot but don’t like writing might use a model to articulate or polish a thought.

Subtle persuasion / seeding – Companies or advocacy groups occasionally use LLMs to steer sentiment about technologies, frameworks, or policy topics, though HN’s moderation makes that risky.

Just for fun – People like to see if a model can sound “human enough” to survive an HN thread without being called out.

So, yeah — not much at stake, but it’s a good sandbox for observing model behavior in the wild.

Would you say you’ve actually spotted comments that felt generated lately?

[simpleintheory]

I'm not sure whether to be amused or annoyed by this comment (generated in the style of ChatGPT).

[0xdeadbeefbabe]

Don't forget, if it stays busy with HN comments then maybe it won't have time for air traffic control or surgical jobs.

[LightBug1]

Or Skynet'ing

[immibis]

Building up account reputation (which HN has) so you can then manipulate opinions.