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Comment by aboringusername | Hacker News Reader

Do you not see this as a problem? With the amount of services Google offer, losing them can be devastating; photos, emails, Android backups, contacts and so so much more.

This pandemic has been reliant on emails to access services; it's how I get my payslips, talk to my employer, get current information, engage with legal services, and essentially maintain my access to society.

Losing my emails would be devastating (hence why I don't use a "major" provider, at least less risk that way).

We need to define what "rights" are and weigh that interest in society. If Google wants to be a "one stop shop" it cannot, and must not, be immune to laws and the rights of individuals to challenge decisions.

Isn't that the foundation of a society?

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No, it's not a problem. It's your problem if you become entrenched in their (or Apple's / FB / whatever) services.

I have a google account to test my devices / emulators. Never logged in gmail with that account, never will. If they cut it off, I can make another.

Same with Apple. I have an Apple free ID for running virtual machines with MacOS / iOS and that's all. I tell my customers to create their own Apple ID and I deliver them the sources + dev environment and they make their own binaries and publish on Apple store. My job is done once I make the app run on emulators and I tell them from the start of the project this.

I have a FB account to talk on FB mess with parents from school and that's all. I don't even have them as friends there, I am just in 3 lists and that's all.

Also i use protonmail currently as I've started migrating from yahoo 2 years ago (old e-mails still there, I open that e-mail like once per month).

Do the same, you'll be free. Also you can use an e-mail account outside of google domain to actually create a google account, if you really need one.

I do not have a FB account, but the test accounts I create d got banned fairly quickly.

This was to work on an API integration.

Off topic but Facebook’s developer portal has a create test user capability that works pretty well. I don’t use Facebook either but if I need it for work I create a Facebook with my work email.

> No, it's not a problem. It's your problem if you become entrenched in their

It absolutely is a problem for a large amount of people.

> Do the same, you'll be free

The vast majority of people in the world are not taking the same actions as you are. Therefore this is a large problem for many many people.

I do not. Becoming dependent on a large e-mail provider is only because of continued willful ignorance.

Better education for how digital services work and how to properly handle your digital identity is the right way to handle this. Implementing regulation and cementing the "major" e-mail providers who have the resources to comply will only deepen people's dependence on these corporations.

So what do you propose then? How do you "properly handle your digital identity is the right way"?

Do I have 15 emails addresses with 15 different providers? When a form asks for my email address I can only give one, what happens if that provider goes away?

What if a government doesn't like $provider and seizes the business? Now I can't get a reset link/change my password/prove my identity...Many government online services ask for your email these days, so you don't really have much control over that. If you said I am joe@blogs.com and blogs.com dies, you're toast.

Please do explain.

You went from dealing with being banned by google to the general case of an e-mail provider disappearing. This is different. In one case you have control ( choosing not to deal with google because of their arbitrary judgments when it comes to account termination ) in the other, you really don't. ( Random calamity that befalls your email provider ).

If your email provider goes away, you're screwed. Nobody accounts for this situation. Doubly so when you used an identity provider that has gone bust. The question is, how do YOU imagine imposing regulations on mail providers will change anything in a case like this?

Store your credentials, make backups of your emails, don't use identity systems. If things really do go bust, you'll retain access until you can get manual changes made to your accounts.

The other obvious solution is to have identity/e-mail built-in as part of citizenship and be gauranteed by your government.

Register your own domain and point it at your preferred service, if you lose access to that service you still retain the domain and you still have your email address.

If you want to solve this problem you have to spend some money somewhere otherwise you are simply demanding providers give you services, for free, forever, not something that seems realistic?

But can't the same problem happen if you, somehow, lose the ownership of your domain? I mean, I don't know what the actual assurances are, but if there is any chance that you may lose access to your domain (for causes other than forgetting to pay to renew, ofc), even temporarily, that would be the same as being banned from Google. Or even worse, because having your Google account locked means you can't use it but noone can use it either; however, if somebody now has your domain, they could be able to impersonate you.

I think that is very very uncommon and when it does happen there's usually some kind of legal process involved. In other words I don't think you're going to have your domain yanked away without some reasonable amount of warning and ability to dispute.

In the worst case scenario you'd have time to setup a new domain and move everything over. Annoying yes, but again extraordinarily rare.

Consider that our lives are increasingly complicated. What an adult is expected to know and understand has grown to the point that 16 years of formal education are required.

As email's importance approaches a utility like physical postal service it's reasonable to expect some regulation. So long as the regulation is independently developed and balances the needs of consumers and producers then it shouldn't be too burdensome for competition to exist.

In the worst case taxes could pay out to whichever provider one chooses.

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