[nzeid]

> They've essentially gotten roped into maintaining a huge chunk of internet infrastructure, for free. If they ever shut it down the whole world would end up rioting because it's so widely used.

Not even remotely true. They regularly shut down products and services with impunity. If Gmail cost more than the data they directly or indirectly mine and sell from their users, Gmail wouldn't exist either.

[traderj0e]

The stuff they've shut down has been nowhere near as important as Gmail.

[duskwuff]

Shutting down GMail would practically amount to shutting down email. It's by far the largest email provider in the US (and probably in the world but I don't have that data). There's no other provider who could take up the slack; if it were to abruptly shut down, a lot of users would simply lose access to email altogether.

[elmomle]

They'd generate a huge amount of ill will by shutting it down, and that in turn would likely lead to a nontrivial share of people moving away from Google core products (like search) out of pure spite.

[loloquwowndueo]

Wait, Google does search these days?

[KennyBlanken]

To what? Google Search sucks thanks to the idiot who ran Yahoo into the ground, but everyone else sucks more. Every time I try to use non-google search the results are virtually useless.

Google has firmly been in the "we're so big we can suck at everything, but you'll still use our stuff because you have no other choice" phase that Microsoft was (is?) in.

They've dominated email so much that their spam filter makes it a very risky proposition to run your own domain; chances are very good it'll just start dropping your messages. Even if chances aren't great, can you take the risk of an important email getting zapped?

To this day I still routinely have to fish out my gmail spam folder dozens of emails from various open source mailing lists that have been around for a decade or two, some hosted on kernel.org, because the spam filter is convinced they're spam. Google is too fucking stupid or lazy to whitelist sites like kernel.org.

FFS even google groups I'm in that are technical get obviously-not-spam messages tagged as spam!

[throwaway173738]

kagi has been pretty good. Not great but way better for searches for information that happen to have a lot of people selling you something.

[bigstrat2003]

No, that wouldn't happen. Lots of people don't have email through Google, for one. Those people will still use email just fine. Moreover, the people who do use Gmail will simply sign up with another provider. It won't be a big deal.

[duskwuff]

> No, that wouldn't happen. Lots of people don't have email through Google, for one.

Based on some data I collected around five years ago, roughly 80% of US customers used GMail for personal email. It was overwhelmingly the most common choice. I suspect that number has only drifted upwards since.

(What about the rest? 15% were using Yahoo; the rest were spread thinly across AOL, Microsoft, ISPs, and colleges.)

[autoexec]

At one point AOL was the largest ISP and email provider on Earth too. If gmail died off people would just move to something else. It'd be annoying, but it wouldn't be the end of email

[a2128]

Google could actually do everyone a solid by killing gmail. They have enough influence in the industry that they could create a standard for email address portability, and then slowly force everybody to move off. By the end, one of the biggest problems with email would be solved and people would be able to switch email providers like how we can switch phone providers without needing to change our phone numbers. And Google would get to save a lot of money by no longer needing to provide everyone's emails

[Sohcahtoa82]

In the days when AOL was the largest AOL, the only people on the internet were middle class and above and the uber-nerds. The landscape has changed.

[traderj0e]

When AOL was the largest email provider, there weren't as many people using email, at least not for important things

[omcnoe]

I’d honestly expect to see regulatory intervention if they tried this.

[idle_zealot]

In a better time I would expect the government to step in a acquire this fundamental service and fund it with tax money. Right now? The only intervention I would expect is a massive subsidy to pay Google to keep providing it, while also letting them continue to spy on everyone's mail (which is a crime, but not if the mail is on a computer, I guess).

[icase]

oh yes, government-run email.

what could possibly go wrong

[idle_zealot]

Why is this inconceivable? I don't know where you live, but the Post Office is extremely cheap and reliable around here. What drives you to pretend that states can't provide services to their people?

[account42]

It's already called G-mail. Perfect fit.

[traderj0e]

Government-operated Gmail would become such a massive cesspool of spam and hijacked accounts. It'd be spectacular.

[WalterBright]

Do you believe that if the government provided email, that the government wouldn't keep track of everything you did on it?

[idle_zealot]

Depends on the health of our institutions. In the US at least they're legally obligated not to by the highest law in the land. It gets ignored now, but it's a more promising path to privacy-preserving digital infrastructure than letting the private market handle it.

[s1mplicissimus]

Do you believe the government doesn't keep track of your email, just because it's hosted on googles servers?

[icase]

oh no. what a shame that would be.

[redeeman]

bullshit, email exists outside of gmail, and email would continue to exist without it. many would have to get a new account somewhere, but that would be not a problem. there are shitloads of providers that would be quite happy

[lukan]

Yeah, but they still don't run a charity. They sell ads and information - and gmail provides them with lots of valuable information.

If that ceases to be true, goodbye (free) gmail.

[LightBug1]

Shutting down GReader ruined my life.

[traderj0e]

Has nobody made a better RSS reader since then? Or is the issue that GReader was so popular that shutting it down made everyone stop using RSS?

[negura]

it's insane to frame anything a company like Google does as some kind of goodwill. rather than an amoral profit optimization. contrary to OP, what people often overlook about GMail is not their "plight". but the powerful brand awareness it creates

[eatsyourtacos]

Yes it is remotely true. Name one thing they have shut off that a large number of people actually used and it was important. We all joke about Google dropping things and yes they have, but saying they can just drop Gmail is.. well, insane.

[negura]

they essentially shut down the old (useful) google search when they prioritized ad-heavy websites in the ranking

[nzeid]

This fixation on "importance" is laughable. It is "insane" to drop Gmail because it makes them a shitload of money. That is how corporations work.

[traderj0e]

The reason people mention importance is because corps like Google don't just care about per-product profitability, they assess how one product affects the rest of their business.