Imagine how much of Earth’s storage space is marketing emails that no one reads.
I’m intentionaly letting it overfill
happy to selfhost immich
THATS THE ONLY REASON PEOPLE STILL USE GMAIL! Proton Mail has 1 free gb, I didn’t use it when I had the free plan.
Unfortunately not, the main reason the majority of people use gmail is that they don’t even know there are other email providers.
“You have 15 GB of space as long as you’re not using it all”
“You used 80% of your free 15GB, upgrade for more storage. Only $9.99/mo… I mean 5.99/month.”
“Wait it’s $0.36/month for 3 months.”
“No email for you cause you used all 15G. Pay up.”
Paraphrase from tactics that they are trying for me to sign up. Heck never.
5GB is plenty for emails, won’t be an issue for 99% of people.
THE problem with google’s storage is that they actively mislead consumers:
- They bother customers during setup and after with: “Do you want to backup your device?” To which a considerable amount of people react to as “Yeah ofcourse I want that!”
- Google does not show any indication where this backup goes or about the eventual payment so people just forget about it.
- After some time their gmail and photos app will start to complain: “YOUR STORAGE IS FULL” - with constant notifications. And their Gmail stops working so they can’t receive emails anymore.
- These regular people confuse ‘storage’ with internal storage so they start looking for ways to expand their internal storage, which obviously doesn’t do anything.
- Eventually they give up and either pay google the ransom or make a new email.
This is the real dark pattern behind their “free cloud”
Worst part is every job, educational institution, legal institution, will send you PDFs to your gmail.
What a racket, if my father was a bit more sane…
…I’d have him prepare me for actual war. He can run in complete silence in a forest.
ive seen people with full gmail accounts and thounds of unread emails
It is interesting. I’ve deleted almost all my emails from my Gmail account and it just won’t go bellow 50% full. There is no way to see what is taking up the space.
My mother on the other hand has 3000+ emails and it’s at like 15% full. They absolutely do this on purpose.
Did you ever use Google Photos to store your pics? That is what has my Gmail/google storage at 99% full, even though it’s been over a decade since I used it and I disconnected it from all my accounts… except apparently not. You can go through the steps to disconnect, it looks like it works, but it doesn’t. I currently have an iPhone, and if I try to delete all the photos in Google Photos, it will still sync with my phone and also delete the same photos on my phone. No matter what I do, I can’t severe that connection. And so I’m stuck at 99%
Are you sure you’re not using anything else google related that might clog it up? That’s what I’m getting at. Check google one for a breakdown.
likely backing up to your google cloud with photos, files, essays,etc.
It is honestly. My Gmail is 16 years old and I’ve only used a third of a gig.
and if you need more you’re probably using a dedicated mail client anyway
Yes, backing up your photos is the killer.
And they don’t even store original quality
oh yea they hide thier back up location very well, you have to go digging in your google drive and click on the backup/cloud option to see where it went.
Whats the fucking point if they only let you attach a 25mb or smaller file.
Anyone else remember when Google bragged about never being worried about storage as you watched your storage free count, grow and grow and grow.
TBF when Iade an account there to check it out back then, they offered about 1GB. But that was huge for the time back then
I remember when they offered 1GB, was at a time when I think the standard hotmail was like either 10 MB or 100 MB, and they made the announcement on april 1st.
Then did it via an invite system.
You know now that I think of it, I wonder what would have happened if google plus had used a similar playbook to that. Seems like with gmail google knew the “exclusivity” was a selling point. Facebook grew big via similar strategies (only these special college students can get it, ok a few more colleges can), meanwhile google plus was "HEY, USE GOOGLE PLUS NOW, Oh you aren’t using it yet, we made your youtube account a google plus account now, so now you have an account please use it now!
While social media in general is toxic. I do feel design wise google plus was leaps and bounds ahead of facebook at the time. Circles is IMO the feature that would have made social media actually semi-useful. (IE post your video game content to gamer friends, fun activities to friends, and not putting any job risking content to bosses etc…).
Yes, I thought Google Plus was way better, but that didn’t matter since exactly everyone used Facebook back then.
Google Plus was invite only in the beginning, though
I think so, I don’t remember how long that was. But I do distinctly remember the era where it was shoved down everyone’s throat, which I have to say stuck with people far more. Telling people that they must use it, generated so much hatred for it it was insane.
I liked Google Circles. Was sad it went away. It definitely made sure that my interactions/upvotes on Aunt Nancy’s account wasn’t seen by MIL who hates her guts and deems my interaction with her a sign of betrayal.
They tried that with Google Wave.
I don’t think marketing was wave’s problem… nobody understood what the hell wave was. I used it for a few months… and I can’t tell you what the hell it was.
Also got into and and used it, I’d describe it as Gdocs multiplayer beta
And that was the end of the wave for invite started social media.
Yeah, the whole ‘you now have a mandatory account’ made for a mad scramble of how to disable every possible scrap of data sent to them. It may have been some small push into the self hosting game too.
Fellow OG. I remember. The day it was close to hitting 5gb I was watching it like an every guy watches their car odometer as it hits some magic number. It was worthy of celebration.
1gb back then was 5x the allowed size for my exchange mailbox at work. HUGE!
Remember Dont Be Evil???
Rotfl
I wonder if every phone has a Mossad style detonation trigger hidden inside, and if it is rigged to blow at a certain time.
I remember. I’m also paying Google $2 a month for 100gb. Fucking bastards. But can you point me to 100GB for less?
You’re going to have a hard time beating $2/mo unless you roll it into something else like blackblaze ($100/year for unlimited storage), Microsoft office 365 ($100/year with 1 TB of OneDrive), etc. If your space is going to photos, the speed and responsiveness of Google photos far outpaces some of the alternatives (cough cough OneDrive).
Self hosting is a viable alternative if you’re interested in having more control/local storage or if you are interested in this kind of thing and want to do it/dabble in it as a hobby.
I personally built a NAS, which will take far too long to amortize vs just paying $2/mo. I chose this route because I value a local backup and because a NAS can a bit of a lifestyle product. “It can double as a server!”. Sounds fun, but I would want to build the thing I host which will also take time so… You could potentially build a NAS that will average out to $2 or less a month if you have spare parts or score some used parts cheap. Odds are that route could also be used for self hosting.
Microslop OneDrive wants $20/m for 1T. However you slice it, we pay for them to back stuff up on a cloud that we used to just back up on our own physical storage. This also gives them access to all our info/pics etc to scan for their AI bots.
50372364.45 GB and growing. It will always be free.
What have you GOT in there, damn
they went from that to datamining your emails and your google storage, now they invested so much into AI, they want sell even more services.
If you did the annual security ‘check-up’ you got an extra 2GB (maybe it was just 1GB and I did it a couple of years).
I mean, OneDrive did the same, except their tactic was just to delete your files instead of store them, instead of increasing it…
wtf do they need a ph# for? theyve got your email and sms ids(same as ph#). a ph# just seems like a bit of sales pitch food
New users.
Even still, I moved off Gmail years ago. I keep my Google fingerprint minimal.
- Google is reportedly testing a 5GB storage limit for new Gmail accounts, down from the standard 15GB.
- Users can “unlock” the full 15GB of free storage by adding a phone number to their account.
Seems they’re trying to get phone numbers this way. Maybe it’s for increased user data, maybe it’s to prevent fraudulent activity, maybe it’s to have more information to give authorities.
phone numbers were already an almost mandatory addition to new Google accounts. You need to set up 2FA when you make a new account, and the option to use an authenticator app is so well hidden… meanwhile Google still wants your phone number “to authenticate you”, even though it’s less secure than storing your password on a post it on your phone.
I work with homeless people and I discovered you can no longer make email without a cell phone with any major provider. I can’t get them into their social security without an email.
I was able to find an email provider that didn’t require a cell phone, but then you had to use a cell phone to get past the verification on the social security site. You are absolutely fucked without a cell phone now.
Thats really twisted. They really want to make not owning a cell spy a crime. Every time I learn something new about Surveillance it makes me more anarchist.
The problem is that it isn’t an intentional design decision. It just happens to be the easiest way to add a “cost” to sign-up.
I wouldn’t assume stupid is by design. Malice intent can be professional at hiding in plain sight. Just because its the easiest route doesn’t mean it can’t also be intended for shady reasons. Kind of like how designers forget how to add wheelchair paths for Libraries.
The GUI of both of those sites are nearly identical. Are they the same service?
apparently they both will delete your account after 6 months of inactivity. i had mail.com accounts since mid 2000s, and they have deleted quite a few of mines after they made that change(from permanent email before 2020,inactivity to every 6 months), just be warned if you dont use or login, your accts get deleted, they wont help you after that.
They are both owned by United Internet.
Thank you.
i have mail.com, i found that in mid 2000s, before 2021, they use to never delete your account if you dint use it for a while, but now its every 6 months if you dont have activity the account will be deleted. i was initially using that for resume, just a warning if you intend to keep an address and use it once in a while. i had to move some of my stuff back to google around that same time they made changes.
Proton mail doesn’t require a phone number
Proton doesn’t work with social security website unfortunately. I ended up using Tuta mail but then later got stuck on Login.gov because it required either a cell phone to verify by taking pictures of ID or a desktop with a camera for a video call.
Needless to say this is not something someone with no computer skills can accomplish. What is even worse is the local social security office stopped taking walk-ins. The solution? You guessed it, use the social security site to login and request an appointment…
Can you elaborate on the social security thing? I have lived most of my life outside the States and hope to never need SS, but, well, best to know what’s going on just in case.
Apparently they cut a bunch of staff and many offices are by appointment only now. So basically you need to account for this if you are going to file.
Most of the troubles I have had are helping people whom are not technologically savvy and they sometimes don’t have a cell phone. Not having a cell phone makes the process extremely difficult because apparently it is just taken for granted that everyone has one nowadays.
You don’t need to worry until you are probably 62 which would be early retirement for you. You full retirement would be 67 which just means you get a higher benefit the longer you wait. When the time comes you can always reach out to Social Security and they will explain the process.
Thank you for the explanation.
In order to sign up at the SS website on my laptop so I could get an updated statement, I had to use my phone to take pictures of my ID and myself. It kept failing/dropping. It was a giant PIA. Finally got it to work but I had to attempt a couple different days. I don’t know how someone who has no experience with a smart phone and laptop or tablet manages. I think I heard that about 25% SS employees were DOGE’d as well as many field offices closed and it can be incredibly difficult to get an appointment (some are just not staffed), especially if you reside in a rural county. I have to help my husband get signed up on the website and I dread it. He has a very thin frustration threshold with tech he can’t get to work. I foresee his phone flying across the room.
The way they’re going they’ll have increased social instability
Damn it’s like they don’t want the system working at all, that’s so convoluted and unnecessary
I tried to make a second account recently, and it wanted me to scan a qr code with my phone that then wanted to send me a text message. At the same time they were saying “this won’t associate your phone with the account.” I don’t believe that.
believe nothing any company claims… assume whatever they claim is a lie, and they are about to defraud you because we’ll… that’s all they know how to do… illegal activities, mislead, fraud…
To be generous, this could just be anti-botting. It sucks that bots suck up so many resources, and make things that could be free not free just to try to stop them. When you can have bots create thousands of accounts trivially, it makes sense that they need to provide some kind of identifier.
i assuming you refering to google accounts/bots. Bots on other social media would make tons of google accounts at once so they can spam on those sites, i was in a forum where they all make hordes of google accounts so they “are trusted by reddit” that they wont get filtered out and banned immediately by reddit.
all that effort to post on redshit
How are you creating google account without phone number
I haven’t made one in years. When I made my account it was back when you needed an invitation.
Exactly. I’ve been down this path, countless times, you can’t. I ended up using mailsac.com for temp emails instead.
This sounds like Google is offering 5free gigabytes to temporary accounts, something that couldn’t be done before.
Kinda fair. Stops botnets just stealing server space.
Pay for webmail.
Be the product.
Choose the form of the destructor.
Why not both? /s
We already see $1,500 TVs showing ads.
I see a Ghostbusters quote, I upvote
Thank you Google for TURNING INTO FUCKING APPLE RIGHT AFTER I SWITCH TO A FUCKING PIXEL
GrapheneOS is built for Google devices. Doesn’t really solve the email problem though.
De-googling your life solves the email problem.
Aren’t Google breaking that though?
They wish. They’re adding friction to a few sites, but they can’t force literally the whole world to use gmail…right?
They’re large enough to ban alternative providers from mailing their servers and see little in the way of puahback. But I agree that the future lies elsewhere. Recently started moving email to disroot.org.
Lmao I’m in the same boat
You own a Google phone, and somehow think they don’t already have your number?
Remember the 1GB Gmail reaction? I remember:
Damn, this image can now drink alcohol in the US.
I blame Microslop
