[madsravn]

"[I] don't like being sold."

Are you serious? They are giving you a free and awesome product and you find it annoying that they earn money marketing to you personally? But not annoyed enough to completely stop using their products....

[FN0rdique]

Three things:

1.) Not everybody thinks Google's products are so all-fired awesome across the board.

2.) Plenty of people find it very annoying to constantly be targeted by marketing everywhere they go. If it's free, you're the product - though that's not to say that simply paying for something protects you from abuse.

3.) Having a dig at someone for complaining about something but still using it is silly. Even if a given Google product is the best in its field, that doesn't necessarily make it the perfect solution.

Plus, there's the economic argument - if you've got to use Google whatever because you can't afford a paid alternative, you're essentially being made to participate in their marketing by not being able to buy your way out.

I'm not saying this is unique to Google, or that this is true across the board, of course, but it's not unreasonable in the slightest to be uncomfortable with the way they do business.

[lostlogin]

This is a better response that mine. I'll add to 1) by commenting that UI design is often unfriendly. It's better than it used to be but its not nice to use and looks ugly. It took several minutes for myself and someone else to find the forward button in gmail 2 days ago after the latest redesign hid it in a menu.

[lostlogin]

I hate adverts so very very much. If prefer to pay google money than have them. And targeting adverts when in gmail is not right. Which products are awesome that don't have a pretty-damn-close competitor? I'd say that search was the only one. Advertising's reach, continual harassment and unrealistic offerings turn me right off.