Comment by NoZebra120vClip | Hacker News Reader

Comment by NoZebra120vClip | Hacker News Reader

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NoZebra120vClip

I recently had a real drama with my Google One subscription.

I cancelled it months ago, because I projected being poorer and trying to tighten my belt. Then I thought better of it, and so I wanted to resubscribe.

Although my subscription was good through August 12, the system would not allow me to reactivate it early, would not allow me to update payment methods, although it was tantalizingly displaying several "upgrade" buttons for more expensive plans. And it was also displaying a prominent yellow banner that told me I had cancelled "but I can restart it anytime!"

So in mid-July, I contacted a support agent. And they started explaining to me that there was no way to resubscribe until the day it lapsed. And I described their banner and they said welp, just wait for that day. And they also repeatedly said "you can contact us anytime and resubscribe!" and I kept telling them to quit lying!

I was also reminded of a terrible threat, that email is counted in disk quota, and if I was in excess of 15GiB when the 100GiB subscription lapsed, my email would be disabled! Since I can't guarantee I'll have the subscription for life, I'll just have to ensure I never exceed 15GiB, even though I pay for 100, sad...

So the termination day rolled around, and I contacted support to ask them why I couldn't restart it, and they said I had to wait for the cancellation email (different story than the first time around) and I was finally able to safely renew, and hopefully set up autopay on that too.

The funny thing is that if the One subscription lapses, I'd of course lose access to those live agents as well, so if I had any further trouble, I'd be screaming into the void. I mean, if One expires, you're over quota, email won't work, you don't receive the email, you can never resubscribe, nobody will help you... ouch.

Never ever ever trust Google like this. You need to go a different route for your storage.

My... storage?

Yes. Who you gonna call when they block your email and you have access to no files? It seems like half the time you have to reach someone who works at Google here for help.

I'd get my storage elsewhere at the very least especially when they will disable your email because of their incompetence.

My storage is relatively immaterial to my dependence on Google.

My email address is linked to several hundred accounts which I use to run my life, manage my household, do finances, etc.

My email address is, of course, the primary means of communicating with me other than phone.

YouTube is my primary means of entertainment, but that's disposable.

I also use Sign In With Google on dozens of the above accounts, so they are a definite dependency on the Google account.

I own an Android phone and a Chromebook. I operate 3 personal accounts, and my employer relies on Google as our primary business platform.

My Google Calendar and Tasks are my sole method of scheduling everything I do in life, from daily tasks to events I attend and everyone's birthdays.

My Google Contacts contain all contacts of everyone I know and is the sole repository of that data.

Google Docs and Sheets are my sole word processing and spreadsheet apps, which I use to great effect for writing letters, managing household, etc. etc. I know them like the back of my hand, and I also use them every day for work.

All the photos I've ever taken since 2015 are stored only in Photos. Not many, of course, but some I'd miss.

I'm increasingly using Wallet and GPay for financial transactions and event tickets. I even hear tell that my jurisdiction is putting driver licenses on Wallet now.

So could you rephrase your advice to me please? Which $20/year service replaces these apps, and permits easy import of all my data from Takeout?

If someone used 365, would you demand that they GTFO Microsoft and junk their Windows systems? What should we run? A PDP-11?

> My email address is linked to several hundred accounts which I use to run my life, manage my household, do finances, etc.

Any reputable service allows changing email addresses. For less important services like Amazon you can use an email alias. Tutanota and Proton are nice email providers whi do not read the content of your emails and and not scan files.

> My email address is, of course, the primary means of communicating with me other than phone.

If you have a phone, can't you just install a messenger? Session does not require a telephone number nor a smartphone, I think.

> I also use Sign In With Google on dozens of the above accounts, so they are a definite dependency on the Google account.

In your Google Account settings which accounts use Sign In With Google. Go to each account and change authentication to email and password wherever possible.

> I own an Android phone and a Chromebook. I operate 3 personal accounts, and my employer relies on Google as our primary business platform.

Does not prevent you from using a secondary email for your personal important stuff like government and financing.

> My Google Calendar and Tasks are my sole method of scheduling everything I do in life, from daily tasks to events I attend and everyone's birthdays.

> My Google Contacts contain all contacts of everyone I know and is the sole repository of that data.

Should be exportable as ics files I think. Make at least a backup once in a while.

> Google Docs and Sheets are my sole word processing and spreadsheet apps, which I use to great effect for writing letters, managing household, etc. etc. I know them like the back of my hand, and I also use them every day for work.

Get an offline editor like LibreOffice. Online editors are crap when your internet connection is off or need to make a ton of content.

> All the photos I've ever taken since 2015 are stored only in Photos. Not many, of course, but some I'd miss.

You can download them for offline use, make a backup and then print out the ones you really care for.

> I'm increasingly using Wallet and GPay for financial transactions and event tickets. I even hear tell that my jurisdiction is putting driver licenses on Wallet now.

If you use GPay, it is even more important to not have any content stored in your account. See the case of a father sending his doctor a picture of his son for diagnosis. It was falsely recognized as child porn and the father had no way to get back the account. If your account gets suspended, you are out of luck.

> So could you rephrase your advice to me please? Which $20/year service replaces these apps, and permits easy import of all my data from Takeout?

> If someone used 365, would you demand that they GTFO Microsoft and junk their Windows systems? What should we run? A PDP-11?

Noone said to nuke your Google account. In fact you're being very passive aggressive despite not having made any effort on researching alternative apps. Don't tie your whole offline and online identity to one provider who doesn't care about you except for your (and people close to you) money and data.

From what I can see, you dug yourself into a hole. If google decides to close your account, you will be in some real trouble. You should start working ASAP in diversifying your online life.

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