• Sabre363@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Part of the problem is that Google has an entire ecosystem that is ridiculously useful and is designed to hook people and keep them around. And once they’re hooked it’s really hard to move away from, even if it’s in their best interest.

    • Dettweiler@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Unfortunately, parts of that ecosystem start deteriorating as they slowly abandon the product, until it reaches a point of being borderline useless. Then, they just deactivate it with little to no warning. Sometimes they just shut things down even if they’re popular (such as Google Poly).

      For example, their line of home security cameras are getting worse in quality and usefulness. I feel like it’s only a matter of time until the Nest service shuts down.

      • Captainvaqina@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I don’t think Google will shut down nest anytime soon. They gather very useful telemetry about their “customers” and use that data to train models, and ah-hoc send your front door video to law enforcement whenever they want it.

        • Dettweiler@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Perhaps, but there is absolutely no development or bug fixing happening on their software. There hasn’t been a software update in years, and the hardware has been a crapshoot for just as long.

    • Clent@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Everyone says Apple’s walled garden is a problem.

      Google built something far more insidious. higher walls but glass, no garden just a swamp of ads.

      • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Google has lots of problems but “a walled garden” it absolutely is not.

        There’s an open source version of Android with hundreds of forks.

        There’s an open source version of Chrome with dozens of forks.

        You can install literally any APK you want on Android without any workaround shitfuckery, rooting or jailbreaking.

        All Google apps are available on iOS and MacOS.

        People use Google products because, from a pure user standpoint, they’re a compelling option.

        You can sign up for a Google Workspace account and have virtually everything you need to run a business at a compelling price. And it all works quite well.

        None of that means they aren’t using their domination nefariously but it sure as shit is not a walled garden.

        • Clent@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          This reads like a Google ad. I know you’re not a Google marketing shill. They don’t need it. Their users will justify their own choice to the point their literally lose the scope of the thread.

      • Sabre363@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        They are all part of the same walled shit hole disguised in a veneer of shiny new products and empty promises.

        • Clent@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Sure. It’s just funny to watch people pick Google because Apple is bad.

          At least Apple isn’t selling every price of your data to advertisers.

          Apple hatred is mostly people who have never used it.

          Everyone has used Google.

          Google is inarguably worse but people get religious about it. As long as they can think of one thing Google does better, they will justify the abuse.

          Sort of like republican voters.

          • Sabre363@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            Apple is almost certainly selling your data, perhaps not to same extent as Google, but personal data is literally these companies biggest commodity.

            • Clent@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Yep. That’s the justification I was talking about.

              People have a blindness to Apple so they let Google take their data.

        • Dojan@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Depends on your goals I think. Microsoft isn’t very likely to ever abandon their office suite, since it’s an integral part of their business. Google could do that tomorrow.

          If you want to get away from big evil corporations, then no they’re obviously not an alternative.

          I think there are Google Docs clones you could self-host.

          • sab@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            OnlyOffice, which is included in NextCloud and allows for co-editing, works fine in my experience. Microsoft Office Online is slightly more sophisticated, but it also feels more bloated in my experience.

            There’s also a markdown editor allowing for co-authoring in Nextcloud. It lacks proper track changes, but for drafting up a document together it’s great. Then you can just convert to word or latex when it’s time to revise.

            For most of my co-authoring needs I use Overleaf, which is a fantastic online Latex editor.

              • sab@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                Yes! The ones I listed are just my preferred solutions for simultaneous co-authoring. Whenever I just need regular office software LibreOffice is my go to. :)

    • Whirlybird
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      1 year ago

      Eh, I think it’s pretty simple to move away from as there are plenty of ready made alternatives. There are a million different email services, many web browsers, many note taking/saving apps, many other map services, and so on. The only ones there aren’t really replacements for are YouTube and parts of google photos.

      Apple and Microsoft for example both have alternatives for everything google has.

      • Sabre363@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        There are certainly a great number of alternative, but the average person doesn’t seem to want to put in the effort to switch. Nor do they appear to particularly care about privacy or the prevalence of ads. Google puts a lot of effort into making sure people don’t care enough to leave.