Whelp, here we go again

  • And what are the consequences of “strikes”? Will you delete my Google account, including my email, and also screw up my Android phone and my kids Chromebook?

    It’s scary to realize that Google has me by the balls here. They can screw me in so many ways, and screw my family members as well. I’d rather have my bank credentials stolen than my email credentials, at least I can get real customer service from the bank, I can even go to a physical location and speak face-to-face with someone who can help me. Google wont give me customer support, and my email account is the closest thing to an identity I have for most businesses I interact with.

    It takes a lot of work to avoid Google. Yes, there are alternatives, but in D&D terms, avoiding Google is like a -2 to all stats for your entire life, and not something we can expect the general population to do.

    All this shows the need for anti-trust enforcement. The same company is controlling too much. Bust 'em up!

      •  Chahk   ( @chahk@beehaw.org ) 
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        182 years ago

        I’ve seen enough horror stories to know that’s not going to help. They can, and do, associate multiple accounts to same users. Be it by cookies, IP addresses, or dark magic, the end result is the same - they can upend your entire digital life if they want to. r/degoogle better hurry up and migrate to Lemmy.

      •  rho50   ( @rho50@lemmy.nz ) 
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        72 years ago

        I’d argue the bigger moral is that you should always own your online identity. You should buy your own domain (@yourname.xyz or something like that) and make your email on that. So if Google bans you, you just switch email providers and keep your address.

        •  wim   ( @wim@lemmy.sdf.org ) 
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          22 years ago

          I’ve been using @fixnum.org and since a few years the alias @wim.land to do exactly this, but that’s just email.

          My app purchases, photo storage, and YouTube account are all entangled in this. I could decouple from Google, but it would be very painful.

    •  jon   ( @jon@lemmy.tf ) 
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      142 years ago

      Article suggests you simply get blocked from watching additional videos. But there’s no info on how that works- is it account based? IP based? Can I wipe my YouTube cookies to bypass a block?