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Comment by harshalizee | Hacker News Reader

But realistically how do you do it? I've stopped signing up for any new Google products for well over half a decade now. Even moved my email to protonmail.

I have a little over 500 accounts tied to my Gmail over the last two decades. Moving them is a pain but still possible.

The problem arises when it comes to existing accounts with byzantine financial institutions. Trying to change email addresses that are linked to you as the username is nigh impossible in many cases.

Quite a few institutions won't let you use an email that comes from protonmail or a custom domain. So, many times I'm forced back into using a Gmail address to prevent a whole host off other issues

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Your point about the inability to change your email address with certain institutions resonates with me. Some companies have no consideration for the possibility that one of their customers might need to change their primary email address.

Last year I was notified by Audi that my email address had been compromised in a data breach. As the spam volume to that mailbox increased, I decided to change it. I discovered that I cannot change the email address associated with my Audi account. When I contacted their Technical Support group, they advised me to delete the whole account (which failed), and create a new one.

Financial institutions are the most frustrating when it comes to email notifications to custom domains. Often times the confirmation email comes through fine, then the email notifications fail to be sent. Luckily with all financial institutions it's easy (probably too easy) to call them up and change your email address.

I've lost thousands of dollars of digital content at google. I was really salty about it for a while, but sacrifice is the price of liberty. It is a small sacrifice to not do business with companies that demand I do business with other companies that refuse to provide customer service.

I do a lot more business in cash locally as a result. Finding a good local bank that will let me physically show up to deal with problems with my money was the hardest part due to the massive consolidation in that industry, but the result is that I am more connected to my community and more resilient to many types of problems.

> Quite a few institutions won't let you use an email that comes from protonmail or a custom domain. So, many times I'm forced back into using a Gmail address to prevent a whole host off other issues

As in, they check "if domain != 'gmail.com' { fuckyou(); }"? Or as in "they MTAs are not very good and just don't deliver email"?

Literally that. If your email domain doesn't come from a set of whitelisted domains (gmail, yahoo, msn, etc.) they just don't let you create an account.

I have accounts in the US, EU and Asia due to family, etc. and this kind of restriction is fairly common in EU/Asia

> this kind of restriction is fairly common in EU/Asia

Interesting; I can't say I recall ever encountering such a restriction anywhere, including banks, and I have or had bank accounts in a number of European (and other) countries. I've encountered other problems, but not this. Not that I'm doubting your experience of course; just interesting I never had problems with it.

But it is free excrement

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