> It is an illusion to say we know what will or will not happen to Google over the next 20 years. We don't know how entrenched the tech giants are over decades because we've never had anything like them before.
Realistically we have little control or have any clue on what's going to happen a few years out in almost every aspect of life.
Look at Kodak (the photography company). They were around for over a 100 years, then digital photography came along to disrupt their market and they pretty much disappeared in a few months.
Kodak and Google aren't that different as being a company that offers a service that tons of folks use(d). Kodak used to be "the" place to buy film and get photos developed.
I'm all for controlling your own email (even tho I'm guilty of not doing so), but I think even if you controlled your own email, you'll still be victim of the company you're using maybe going out of business in the future. I wish nothing but success for Fastmail or any other email service that lets you control your email, but if they go down then you're in the same position as Google going down while using gmail.
>Look at Kodak (the photography company). They were around for over a 100 years, then digital photography came along to disrupt their market and they pretty much disappeared in a few months.
Kodak was well aware of digital photography, arguably one of its pioneers. What killed Kodak was cellphones. Kodak was too dependent and attached to making cameras and camera-related equipment. Most people did not need separate cameras once cellphones came along (even the 'dumb' models have a camera), so Kodak had nothing relevant to sell... Doubtful Google could be so stupid. Maybe if the Feds separate gmail from Search there'll be problems?
>I wish nothing but success for Fastmail or any other email service that lets you control your email, but if they go down then you're in the same position as Google going down while using gmail.
Keeping all your mails locally is not difficult if you use a mail client rather than a web client. Copying to a local folder every once in a while is a one/two click operation in typical clients.
Realistically we have little control or have any clue on what's going to happen a few years out in almost every aspect of life.
Look at Kodak (the photography company). They were around for over a 100 years, then digital photography came along to disrupt their market and they pretty much disappeared in a few months.
Kodak and Google aren't that different as being a company that offers a service that tons of folks use(d). Kodak used to be "the" place to buy film and get photos developed.
I'm all for controlling your own email (even tho I'm guilty of not doing so), but I think even if you controlled your own email, you'll still be victim of the company you're using maybe going out of business in the future. I wish nothing but success for Fastmail or any other email service that lets you control your email, but if they go down then you're in the same position as Google going down while using gmail.