If there's a good alternative never use Google anything. The sole fact that there is no appeal system to account shutdowns and the way they just kill services at random should be enough reason for anyone.
I gotta migrate out one of these days.
I also prefer to host any actual services behind my domain on a third provider, but at the very least being able to redirect your domains is very helpful.
EDIT: One can find several instances where users search domain names on GoDaddy and they are available at regular price but when they try to place the order, the domain is no longer available and must be bought at a premium price.
Here's a fun things about AUP: they're viral. Once your upstream provider enacts one, you have to follow, or risk being cut off.
I'm pretty sure this is the combo you go with if you want to do borderline illegal things.
Google doesn't protect scammers and actively goes after them. But if they flag _you_ incorrectly then your entire legitimate business may be defunct if you have your domains there as well.
If you use a service that has the moral high ground, that is all fine and good. But there is chance the service may decide you are immoral.
The only way to protect yourself is to use a service that also protects people you don't like.
Remember Google came for Tulsi Gabbard by banning her Adsense account and now they are even coming for the anti-establishment classical liberals like Jimmy Dore, Aaron Mate, Glenn Greenwald. Anyone who opposes forever wars is the next "white supremacist" and "russian agent".
Your comment is doing the same racism which you claim to be against. Usually the next response is to call me an Uncle Tom for not falling for the boogeyman and going along with the narrative. Anything which doesn't fit the establishment narrative gets classfied as "white supremacist" and other such labels now a days - just like your comment did.
Ps. Won’t be replying further because this discussion is neither relevant nor productive, plus probably borderline breaks HN rules.
isn't the correct thing to still register their domains and just go to the police with it?
Based on my sysadmin background I actively try to know as little about my customers as possible: sure I might become a hero whistleblower but more likely I'll taint myself in various ways.
We are also not the police.
You needn't ask your customers "Are you going to do something bad?" (sometimes regulation forces you to ask if they _did_, but that's a past-looking question).
But once you know they are using that service for unacceptable activities, it's ok to remind them that such behavior is unacceptable. After all, you don't want having a reputation of the place that has those kind of customers.
Sorry if that might seem naive, if it makes anyone feel better I'm not operating a domain registrar or hosting provider so my opinion is kind of moot anyway :)
With broadly applied rules, you either have to accept some rule breaking will occur, or accept that you will end up punishing the innocent in efforts to prevent it. Realistically it's both, but there is a give and take between them.
Those inevitably flawed systems are not an ultimate solution to the problems they mitigate. To tackle the problems stemming from bigotry and intolerance, for example, attacking the perpetrators as "bad people" doesn't work, and is a bit self defeating. The goal should be to defeat the harmful ideas underpinning it, through positive proof of better ideas.
We are not far away from each other on the goal here it seems only in how to achieve it.
Also now a days any opposing speech gets classified as nazis and white supremacist etc labels. Take Tulsi Gabbard getting her Adsense account censored by Google for example and getting called a russian agent and then it escalating to her supporters being called nazis and Assad toadies. Bernie supporters got called misogynsts for political purposes. The censorship tools always get abused eventually on those who advocated for it.
Related article on how ACLU used to defend free speech of even neo-nazis but have since then abandoned their principles and now actively give their data to Facebook:
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/aclu-again-cowardly-abstain...
https://news.yahoo.com/aclu-says-shares-user-data-134345916....
Now censorship is being used against animal rights groups:
https://outsidevoices.substack.com/p/the-targets-of-bidens-w...
Even CloudFlare defended hosting terrorist site for "free speech" reasons:
https://www.fastcompany.com/90312063/how-cloudflare-straddle...
Those who are already clicking on "reply" ready quote Niemöller's poem back to me should expect to be quoted Popper back, and be reminded that those that came for Niemöller are the same ones they wish to protect, and that those assholes wouldn't lift a finger to help you back: they'd rather punch you. It's not a bad idea to punch them back and remind them that they have no place in society, and should crawl back to whatever beerhall they crawled out from.
In both cases, an absurdly overrated bogeyman and unchecked paranoia
White supremacists, on the other hand, are actually violent, as we all seen this last January.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90312063/how-cloudflare-straddle...
https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-and-free-speech/
> the company serves at least seven groups on the U.S. State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations, including al-Shabab, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), al-Quds Brigades, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and Hamas.
> CEP has sent letters to Cloudflare since February 13, 2017, warning about clients on the service, including Hamas, the Taliban, the PFLP, and the Nordic Resistance Movement. The latest letter, from February 15, 2019, warns of what CEP identified as three pro-ISIS propaganda websites.
I do wish CF would apply the same standards to other sites too.
Also, that doesn't affect you if you're using them as a registrar and not hosting.
Just because a real threat is widely acknowledged doesn't make it a bogeyman. Bogeymen, after all, are mythical. Chinese tyranny isn't.
No, it doesn't make much sense to me, either.
Brave instead of Chrome. Duck Duck Go instead of Google. Proton Mail instead of Gmail.
The only thing I haven't been able to replace is YouTube. That's a tricky one because it's the content creators that keep me locked into it.
Yes, this is a pain. At least YouTube does not require an account and you can use it through Invidious (or NewPipe on Android, or mpv/youtube-dl on Linux if you already have the YouTube link).
> Brave instead of Chrome.
Brave is Chrome repackaged. This a bit feels like "I avoid [brand] but I'll take this white-label product (produced by [brand]")
Avoid anything Chromium.
> Avoid anything Chromium.
Yes but this whole discussion is taking place because of the policies Google has for running things, not for building things. It's the operations that suck, not the underlying product.
- content that you seek
- content that seeks you
If I want to watch someone knowledgeable working on my favorite language I will look for this content (or I will find that they are doing this via some other means - like Twitter, irc, Mastodon etc.) and unless experience is not horrible for some reason I don't care if it's Youtube, PeerTube, RSS feed with links to the video on ftp server. If you delivery something unique enough (in this case I assume that there are not that many people providing such content on similar level) for specific group of people you can probably leave YouTube and be fine.
But if I'm interested in something less specialized like for example tech news and I'm not attached to specific creator I might not even notice that someone left the platform. If I don't see "Linus tech tips" in my video feed I'll watch "Gamer Nexus" or "Hardware Unboxed" or something else.
Sad truth is that when I want to see video about something general I look for it on YouTube and don't even bother searching for other source. I think that YouTube "monopoly" is not on hosting video content but on discoverability of it. And I say this as someone who tries to avoid Google products as much as possible.
Patreon only works if you already have established fan base that is willing to pay for your content. It does not help with discoverability at all.
Youtube is still the king of video no matter how you slice it.
For now.
Rumble might or might not break through to mainstream.
Same with those fediverse solutions for different reasons.
Vimeo already works beautifully and is clean in every way AFAIK.
I've never heard about it before now
>fediverse solutions
The what?
>Vimeo already works beautifully
Except you can't monetize your content and in fact you have to pay to post in the first place plus you can't post (at least) gaming related content.
> I've never heard about it before now
Congratulations! You are one of todays 10000 lucky :-)
>>fediverse solutions
> The what?
Peertube for example.
>>Vimeo already works beautifully
> Except you can't monetize your content and in fact you have to pay to post in the first place plus you can't post (at least) gaming related content.
Proof that you can: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/effectivejavaee
Rumble in another.
Peertube etc in a third.
Self-hosting by media companies in a fourth.
Etc.
Their top streamers can literally spread their asshole on camera and get a 3 day ban. All this while normal streamers can get permanently banned for any small offence.
Vimeo or Floatplane seems to be the way to go, depending whether you want to be subscriber-only or have free viewers too.
It seems doubtful because of the same dynamic the article describes. Any working appeal system would teach people how to game them.
The ironic part here is that Google is essentially gaming themselves here: creating a feedback loop that encourages people to not use their ad products. I guess the ML algorithms are not clever enough yet(?) to figure things like that out.
Sadly, there is no clear quality alternative to Google as of today. I have worked for the adnetworks that boast to be second to Google but in reality are pretty disgusting and filled with crappy advertisers and even shady publishers.
I still have an Android, and a personal gmail etc, but if they go away I can still run my business and I'll recover quickly.