Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message
discuss.privacyguides.net634 points by negura 6 days ago
634 points by negura 6 days ago
People complain a lot about Gmail, but honestly I kind of understand Google's plight here.
They've essentially gotten roped into maintaining a huge chunk of internet infrastructure, for free. If they ever shut it down the whole world would end up rioting because it's so widely used.
But it's expensive, complicated and time-consuming to maintain - and both a source of and recipient of endless waves of spam and scams. It's an endless pile of data to hold onto, FOREVER, as well.
I enjoy hating on Google when appropriate. But when it comes to Gmail, I understand what they're dealing with.
It's honestly why I believe the idea of free e-mail is just bad, fundamentally. You can't expect a free e-mail service to be good or have any kind of support. The fact that it still exists is more out of shear fear of the repercussions than any good will on the owner's part.
Just get a paid e-mail service. They're better, and offer a lot more peace of mind.
> They've essentially gotten roped into maintaining a huge chunk of internet infrastructure, for free.
I’ll stop you here. Google offered it for free and, at the time, offered such an high amount of mail storage for free it sounded insane. At the time, my ISP gave me a 25MB or 50MB inbox and that was considered pretty decent, when Google was trying to get people in with 1-2GB.
They absolutely have a right to take ant steps they deem necessary to prevent malicious use of their product, and certainly aren’t obligated to provide it for free, but Google wasn’t forced to provide a free email service, much less one that went so far above and beyond their competition.
> and certainly aren’t obligated to provide it for free
And I'll stop you here. It's less than obvious that there's no obligation. If you provide a critical service that folks rely on at a price less than your cost, you drive out competition, and it's a critical part of your own business model, dropping the service without warning is IMO on the border of what Google should be allowed to do.
I’d say that if Google suddenly stopped providing Gmail for free, destroying the primary means of communication for billions of people, governments would be justified in immediately nationalizing Google with no compensation.
Corporations aren’t magical entities that somehow exist outside of social obligations and can do whatever they want as long as their own terms of service permit it.
Maybe they could announce a pricing increase for a somewhat distant future date.
Maybe $1/month starting in 2 years, then increasing to $2/month for the next year, $3/month for the next, on until they feel they're covering costs.
That way it gives people time to look for alternative free providers, or time to get used to the idea of paying for email.
> Corporations aren’t magical entities that somehow exist outside of social obligations and can do whatever they want as long as their own terms of service permit it.
Where's your support for this statement in the law?
The support is there by no constitution guaranteeing human-like rights for corporations, allowing lawmakers to restrict them however they see fit.
When push comes to shove, the law stops mattering, every time. That’s true for individual rights and it’s true for corporate entities too. The era where things like that don’t happen is a very small slice of human history that is currently coming to an end in real time all around the world. Not long ago, a government simply taking over a company was something that occurred quite regularly.
The existence of law itself is the only necessary support... Law is merely encoded social obligations that the government will enforce. That a single law constrains corporations in any way (and that is clearly the case) proves the statement.
In the broader context GP is clearly advocating for what the law should be, or should be changed to should certain events come to pass. Demanding support in existing law for a proposed change in law is nonsense if that's what you meant to do instead of narrowly discussing the nearly vaccuously true quote you pulled out.
Yeah! I can't believe people know basics about cartels, trusts and dumping.
It does feel like a lot of very intelligent people here basically start at a first principles belief in property rights, and discover or dispute all of the rights and protections put in place over centuries to patch up the issues that occur when that philosophy meets reality. It reflects poorly on our education systems that these apparently weren't covered or were unconvincing when presented. Or maybe it's just a reflection of the era? In practice organizations seem to be repealing these protections through limited interpretations or loopholes, so maybe that skews people's expectations?
It's not a poor reflection of our education system, it's all just motivated reasoning. Smart people will move heaven and Earth to argue themselves into a belief that their self-serving position is actually borne of some global altruism.
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That our education system wasn't resilient to that well-funded propaganda machine is what reflects poorly on it. That such a machine is allowed to exist reflects poorly on our institutions more broadly. I'll never blame human greed. Systems are designed for humans, if they fail to account for human nature then they're bad systems. I'm not really interested in litigating whether humans as a species are bad.
>Systems are designed for humans, if they fail to account for human nature then they're bad systems.
Systems will always be bad. It's why corporations will always be bad. The complexities are too much for humans. You will never account for all variables. Account for one, with that you are exposed to another. This becomes clear to me when you look at government and the systems it tries to use, since forever. Climate change is another great example. Requires coordinated change across the globe. Many many many factors why that will never change. Change in the system of that size is too hard. So is it the system that is bad, or maybe it's just a reflection of limitations within us as a species, today?
A terribly defeatist attitude. The same could be said about, say, death during childbirth. For hundreds of thousands of years people tried methods of midwifery to ease that process and reduce deaths to little effect. People considered that to be women's lot, an immutable fact of human nature. Then we figured out how to reduce deaths during childbirth to a relatively tiny fraction of all-cause mortality, and that level of care became standard, at least in parts of the world. Why would you be so convinced that systems of organization are unsolvable? Where is your hacker's spirit?