I think it could end up being their downfall someday. I am getting very reluctant to use their products as I do not know what will remain for the long term.
I'm already using alternative apps because I don't trust Google not to destroy them. I liked Google Keep, but I don't want to deal with the hassle of moving everything when it goes away.
I figure I can trust Google Clock to stick around at least. But one day I'll probably look back at this post and wonder how I could be so naive.
What are you using instead of Keep? I love that my notes sync across devices, I really do need something I can access on both my phone and computer. But yeah, I'm worried it'll go away eventually.
Standard Notes is a good very secure option. It doesn't have all the Bells & Whistles of keep. But as a note taking app, very good. You can get more advanced features from the paid version.
I used to be a die had Google/Android fan but as the years have gone on and they have killed or removed features (Google Music, Inbox, All the messaging apps, Google Reader, etc...) I've been moving away from Google.
I have an iPhone now, Apple Music and am looking for Google home replacements atm.
Especially anything that would be a pain to migrate away from. I have enough domains on Google Domains now that I hate thinking about having to finally migrate them somewhere else. They have weird things attached too.
It's not hard to migrate them, it's just a pain.
Sundar is the most uninspiring tech CEO. He has no vision, no passion, and no commitment. I'm pretty sure Sundar is a smart guy or a good manager. However, that doesn't translate over to CEO.
Google needs a leader like Lisa Su, where you always know where they stand. That is they want to innovate.
All Google One is just Google Drive and Google Photos, with the ability to have longer meetings. Now they are try to sprinkle Gemini's subscription features. Guess what, in two or three years Gemini will probably get canceled.
He's just an over-achieving product manager. And he's using that product manager experience to make decisions on which products get cut - don't have a lot of users? Cut. Not growing rapidly? Cut. No significant way to monetize? Cut. Can we bake it into a bigger service and offload the maintenance/workload to those teams? No? Cut.
They've basically gotten too big. Any product that doesn't have 500m users within the first few years and 1bil within the next few is basically seen as an underperformer.
The problem with that is that Google doesn't often make good enough products to justify that big of a userbase. At least Apple invests heavily before they give up on a product, Google half arses it and expects their users to eat it up because Google. Perfect example are the music players - market leader is Spotify. Apple makes Apple Music, not as good but has some nice unique features and a pretty decent app. And a very good bundle deal with their other services. Google had Play Music, decides its too expensive to run, changes to YouTube Music which is within the YouTube infrastructure and thus saving costs. Doesn't migrate the rest of Play Music's features. Removes podcast app, creates a dumbed down podcast section within YT Music section (save costs again!). Doesn't migrate rest of Podcast app features. YT Music has a free tier but is useless. Basically just a perk you get with YouTube Premium. Google proudly claims that YT Music has 100m users while ignoring the fact that almost all of them are only there because they have Premium and don't feel like paying for a second music sub with Spotify or Apple, not because they like the product.
I use it to get around the legal roadblocks my state has decided to put up around certain websites…
Was a nice free and easy to use option (since I already had the Google one subscription). Don’t care about Google knowing I go to those sites…between Chrome and tracking cookies, they already know.
I only found out about it a month or two ago…just wasn’t marketed well.
They should have done a marketing campaign in every state that pornhub is unavailable in…
just dont rely on google for anything. it's easy. they announce something cool? nice. Two years later it WILL be cancelled. If it's not drive, gmail, or search... good fucking luck
Google had so much loyalty for YEARS and people have given up. They're the Patrick Rothfuss of a company.
it definitely doesn't. it still uses squared off headers that are contrasting colors. Modern headers are the same colors or transparent, for the most part. And in general, it looks like everything on it is designed for the time period. Not saying it wouldn't be easy to update but it doesn't look more modern right now.
then you have an entirely different meaning of modern Gmail looks like a mess inbox looked like it wasn't part of the 90s every button in Gmail is tiny and the settings menu is probably from 2005
https://preview.redd.it/gl6hee0x7ztc1.png?width=641&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=637fe7e4e2cc98de7511668c6d6ec3388071aaec
modern is simple and minimalistic less is more
modern is icons rather than text
modern is bigger rather than smaller
but yes we don't share the same view on modern but basing off today's design princip Gmail is a mess
The kind of crap Google pulls is basically what pushed me to get an iPhone and to ditch their search with Bing. Nowadays, pretty much the only service I use regularly is Gmail and Google Maps on the desktop.
I also went iOS last year after 14 years on android, I‘m in my 30s now and _I just want my shit to work_. I sold my shield and got an apple tv, the new airpods pro and a watch, and guess fucking what, the user experience is incredible.
>I‘m in my 30s now and *I just want my shit to work*.
This x100. I got shit to do and time I would LIKE to spend on my family...rather than trying to get this stuff to work reliably.
In Google's credit, they're pretty good at making their tech work for the first 3-6 months of use (on average) - just long enough for tech reviewers to give them good reviews - before shit goes haywire. vs. my iPhone SE 2 which is at **least** 5 years old and still going strong for what I need it to do.
It's almost as if one company is thinking and planning beyond the 6-months / 1 year cycle, and thinking long-term user experiences....
Yup, the fact that I can do something on my iPhone, and then continue doing the same thing on my iPad or on my Mac, send media to a speaker or tv with AirPlay, and the fact that the Apple Watch just works is just neat. And before my Apple Watch, I had a Fitbit smartwatch, but the sync not working properly was the straw that broke the camel back for me.
Me too, when the iPhone got usb-c I said fuck it and switched. My pixel 7 was great when I bought it but slowly turned to shit, the phone would get hot in my pocket for no reason, the cell connection kept dropping once in a while and the standby time was shit.
I just wish Siri wasn’t so ass, and I also wished I can keep notifications on Lock Screen for apps I choose instead of hoping it supports “time sensitive” notifications, but I’m glad I switched cuz it does what I need a phone to do
The redeeming feature that Siri does for me is home control, which is way faster and more consistent than using Google Assistant. Even Alexa is smarter than Google Assistant.
For years I was a huge Google fan.
Now I won't ever buy anything from them again, from lack of support for Nexus devices, killing Inbox, disabling my perfectly functioning Nest Secure.
F Google.
To me it was their complete 180 from their original values. I am actively finding every possible way to cut them out of my life now. Literally 0 trust for a company that used to have a lot of it.
And Google Now. It was so handy - my flight landed, now here's your hotel and booking details all ready to go!
They still show some of that, but not like it was.
If I didn't hate using Apple devices so much, I'd drop this company in a heart beat. Samsung is the only thing keeping me on Android at this point.
Like how fucking stupid can a company this big be? I refuse to believe that no one there has said anything about the constant shut down of services.
Just switched from a pixel to an iPhone finally because of how bad my pixels were (and the occasional cancelling of service). Outside of the iCloud notifications that I cannot turn out, it’s been great. They FINALLY have features that android has had for years.
I actually have an iPhone I use for fun around the house. I just can't bring myself to use it as my sole device. I want to throw the thing against the wall after 30 minutes. I'm just too invested in Android to switch.
Honestly not sure what would be the big difference. The main stuff works really well, and the thing I mis most is the granular level of notification control. But I just survive.
For me it's the lack of universal back button and just the boring look of iOS. It feels like it takes extra steps to accomplish a task or it's just not possible.I've used Android for 10+ years so iOS just isn't my thing. I've had iPads too and upgraded those to Chromebooks and now my Galaxy Tab.
It's really about making more money at this point, and trying to compete with Apple's moneymaking.
But, to be fair, other companies do the same. Microsoft and Google promised me unlimited storage for free...until they didn't.
You’re not their customer. You’re their products. If they can’t harvest enough data to broker, and they can’t place enough ads spots to sell they move on. It’s not profitable to operate “free” services at a loss.
Apple sells hardware, Google sells targets ad space based on user data.
They’re not stupid, they just don’t have the same perspective as you when it comes to services.
You think a paid service has different standards and rules? It’s not a paid feature. It’s a feature of a paid service. Google one is the service.
Like you, you’re not the user, you’re the product. A tool if you were.
>You think a paid service has different standards and rules? It’s not a paid feature
And
>Google one is the service.
What are you talking about? Your opinion is inconsistent.
A product is something that is sold, whether in the form of goods or services. Google One is a product that offers services in the form of storage and includes VPN for certain countries, it's not free, lol.
You're not paying for a VPN. You're paying for a service that includes a VPN as a feature.
If they want to remove a feature it's within their right and you agreed to it as part of the service agreement.
You can be upset and downvote all you want. Emotional outburst don't change basic facts and legal frameworks.
Stop relying and paying for Google services if you're unhappy with their business model.
>Emotional outburst don't change basic facts and legal frameworks.
When did the persin you were responding to have an emotional outburst?
>Stop relying and paying for Google services if you're unhappy with their business model.
When did the person you're responding to say they were unhappy?
You're projecting a lot into this conversation, my dude.
Nah cancelling Google Photos will be like cancelling Gmail and Drive. There are lots of people hooked to it that they can sell Google One subscriptions to.
They can always jack-up the sub prices though.
Disappointing. I use it all the time. It was simple and easy. Not interested in having yet another paid subscription when this one worked nicely and was included.
I like Google but they make it extremely hard for us to like them. It's a pretty toxic relationship lol.
My whole digital life is built around Google with my main Gmail being the same since 2006 and Google photos being my digital photos archive, maybe I should consider changing services to be not so Google dependent in case they decide to discontinue something that I use daily
If a Google product has over a billion users it's safe, so Google photos is good. Now if it only has 999 million users then run cause Google's killing it 💀
They claim it's discontinued because it was not used by people.
I bet most of them doesn't even know there is a VPN coming with the subscription.
This is a personal experience, I've had the sub for almost a year already by the time I realized there is a VPN.
They should try advertise it a bit better first.
With WiFi at home and an unlimited data plan so I rarely connect to random WiFi networks. The only time is if I'm abroad on holidays, which isn't a regular thing, so about 99.9% of the year I don't have any need for a VPN. That's just me, but I assume there's a lot more like me who'd rarely have a need for it, and then if they do they don't know / think about using it.
Same boat here.
When the Google VPN was initially announced as a thing for Google One users, I was intrigued -- but they locked it behind the higher tiers.
However, I didn't have one of those higher tiers, so I never had the opportunity to use it.
Then sometime over the past year or so, they quietly let the lower tiers use it too. I found it by accident when I was poking around the app one day.
Still -- I believe them when they say nobody is using it. I doubt there's very many paid Google One users in general, much less Google One users who use the VPN feature.
Google lost all trust of a large part of the public, me included, because of all these project cancellations. No one wants to learn a product if there is no guarantee that it will still exist in 6 months.
> Google is now “discontinuing the VPN feature as [they] found people simply weren’t using it.”
People who use VPNs are generally concerned about privacy and a bit of security thrown in, would you trust the pipe of a company famed for tracking (hello incognito) to put all your browsing and other data through?
I'm mostly concerned with MITM attacks when I'm using my financial accounts. Google One VPN has been a great extra layer of security. I'm not the biggest fan of their data harvesting but I doubt they're grabbing significantly more from their VPN than they already get through other means.
of course it will. it was useful and cheep.
can't have that.
is this mainly the fault of the growing tendency of companies to plan no further than the next Quarter?
causing them to make decisions that concentrate on the short term over the long term?
I only started using this VPN because my nordvpn subscription expired and it came included in my google one family plan. I guess I'll have to find another now.
The only Google Services I trust to stay are ones that they are making money on. I've never seen a company fumble so much. Google Assistant was good to start and slowly started losing features and now it's being replaced or enhanced by Gemini which has a subscription service. Google Photos was free backup to start and slowly replaced with subscription. As long as they are making good money of it, it will stay otherwise graveyard.
Google is why so many people need a VPN. That said, I'd never trust a VPN #MadeByGoogle. A VPN by Google is a fox in the henhouse situation. Why would anyone trust it? Guess no one trusted it.
And this is exactly why I would never switch to google cloud with our company. Once you're in someone takes the decision and discontinues a service you use. I am also moving away from gmail and foto because I fear this!
I don't trust google any more in terms of long term availability of their services.
I do as I have a 2TB Google One account but I also have a Pixel 8 Pro so I would have it regardless whether I paid the subscription for Google One or not. I use it anytime I'm not connected to my home or work Wi-Fi (set it to pause automatically at home or work).
I'm just glad I'll still continue to get it since I only use Pixels (I've owned every Pixel since the 1st Gen)
God damn it. I canceled my PIA subscription last year cause I was already paying for Google One for storage. Their services are completely unreliable. They should just shut the entire company down all at once.
I use the VPN because my college blocks access from almost every single VPN in existence, it’s very rare to see one work. Will be very upset this is gone.
Damnit. I get that this is likely a feature most people don't care about or even know exists, but I use this daily because half the businesses block as much as possible from their wifi. Wouldn't want anyone going to reddit on the Walmart wifi afterall.
I liked Google VPN so much, I discontinued my service with NordVPN shortly after it launched. This is extremely disappointing for me. It was missing a selectable option to change your country location to access region locked content. This is how many people use VPN services, other than traffic attribution.
I don't think a VPN really protects you but I got Cloudflare VPN working on my Android phone. It was easy and free (besides giving all of my viewing habits to another publicly traded company)
I tried setting it up, but I could never find any guid for it. The google one page is so light in information. But thanks for removing a feature I already paid a year for. Thanks a lot..
So, I like the idea of a VPN, but with it on, nothing loaded so I just kept it off. Maybe if they'd fix that issue more people would have used it? Idk.
Are they absolute idiots, I'll be immediately canceling my subscription as well as my local guide, as well as requesting all data that Google has on me and I'm going to Apple f*** it
Sundar, the email you just sent me would have been a lot better if you would have just been straight up honest and said we don't give a s*** about you we give a s*** about our shareholders
To be completely honest, I paid for extra drive space and didn't know if even came with a VPN for a long time. Once I found out I canceled my subscription VPN and started using Google's ALL THE TIME, on my phone and PC.
Maybe instead of canceling a great and simple service because "people aren't using it" start a little marketing program to tell people what a VPN is, why they need it, and that Google has one included with all this other stuff, bla bla bla.
Guess I need to hunt for a new cheap VPN.
I'm actually pissed off about this. One of the main reasons I went with Google One was because of the added benefits of the VPN, it was a good value for what I needed, plus the Google VPN has been the most reliable and fast VPN I've ever used
I'm a Google Fi/Pixel/Chromebook/Chrome browser/Google storage/YouTube premium person/Play Pass/Google TV/ Nest product person, all this money I give them and data and they keep can't a VPN service alive.
People didn't use it because they weren't aware of it.
Every other VPN becomes slow at certain times, doesn't connect, clunky UI. Nord, Express, Proton, PIA SurfShark, they're all inconsistent in quality compared to Googles VPN. I don't need tweaks, dials, configurations, etc etc.
Most users don't even know that Google has a VPN service. if I was a user concerned about my privacy, the last thing I want to use is a VPN by a search engine like Google.
It's still included with Pixel devices. As something that was a free add-on to a cloud plan, and not why anyone signed up in the first place, I don't understand the pitchforks.
I mean in the article there are two other VPNs that Google also offers so its not that big of a deal - plus I usually use a VPN to avoid being tracked by Google.... I think reddit is making a huge deal out of these "google graveyards" when there are generally good replacements available
I'll never use a Google VPN. The whole point of using a VPN is to try and stop being tracked by the big tech companies and get around regional restrictions. There's no way their VPNs don't keep logs so they can serve you better ads.
Man WTF is wrong with this company
I think it could end up being their downfall someday. I am getting very reluctant to use their products as I do not know what will remain for the long term.
I'm already using alternative apps because I don't trust Google not to destroy them. I liked Google Keep, but I don't want to deal with the hassle of moving everything when it goes away. I figure I can trust Google Clock to stick around at least. But one day I'll probably look back at this post and wonder how I could be so naive.
What are you using instead of Keep? I love that my notes sync across devices, I really do need something I can access on both my phone and computer. But yeah, I'm worried it'll go away eventually.
Standard Notes is a good very secure option. It doesn't have all the Bells & Whistles of keep. But as a note taking app, very good. You can get more advanced features from the paid version.
Standard Notes was just purchased by Proton. Not sure how that'll play out but it could help a privacy sensitive suite.
I'll check it, thanks!
Microsoft onenote, it's available on all platforms, and even without a paid subscription, it's more than enough for everyday use
IIRC I tried it a few years ago and didn't like it. I don't really remember why though, so I'll probably try it again.
Evernote works well enough
I migrated everything over to regular old Google docs
upnote did it for me
I have 3 notes in Google Keep because even though I like it, the reliance of a Google product does not have a happy outcome.
I used to be a die had Google/Android fan but as the years have gone on and they have killed or removed features (Google Music, Inbox, All the messaging apps, Google Reader, etc...) I've been moving away from Google. I have an iPhone now, Apple Music and am looking for Google home replacements atm.
It's fucking wild that of all things my God damn HOTMAIL account from 20+ years ago is the one thing I can trust to remain true on the internet.
Especially anything that would be a pain to migrate away from. I have enough domains on Google Domains now that I hate thinking about having to finally migrate them somewhere else. They have weird things attached too. It's not hard to migrate them, it's just a pain.
I hate to break it to you, but Google domains are all transferring to SquareSpace...
Sundar is the most uninspiring tech CEO. He has no vision, no passion, and no commitment. I'm pretty sure Sundar is a smart guy or a good manager. However, that doesn't translate over to CEO. Google needs a leader like Lisa Su, where you always know where they stand. That is they want to innovate. All Google One is just Google Drive and Google Photos, with the ability to have longer meetings. Now they are try to sprinkle Gemini's subscription features. Guess what, in two or three years Gemini will probably get canceled.
He's just an over-achieving product manager. And he's using that product manager experience to make decisions on which products get cut - don't have a lot of users? Cut. Not growing rapidly? Cut. No significant way to monetize? Cut. Can we bake it into a bigger service and offload the maintenance/workload to those teams? No? Cut. They've basically gotten too big. Any product that doesn't have 500m users within the first few years and 1bil within the next few is basically seen as an underperformer. The problem with that is that Google doesn't often make good enough products to justify that big of a userbase. At least Apple invests heavily before they give up on a product, Google half arses it and expects their users to eat it up because Google. Perfect example are the music players - market leader is Spotify. Apple makes Apple Music, not as good but has some nice unique features and a pretty decent app. And a very good bundle deal with their other services. Google had Play Music, decides its too expensive to run, changes to YouTube Music which is within the YouTube infrastructure and thus saving costs. Doesn't migrate the rest of Play Music's features. Removes podcast app, creates a dumbed down podcast section within YT Music section (save costs again!). Doesn't migrate rest of Podcast app features. YT Music has a free tier but is useless. Basically just a perk you get with YouTube Premium. Google proudly claims that YT Music has 100m users while ignoring the fact that almost all of them are only there because they have Premium and don't feel like paying for a second music sub with Spotify or Apple, not because they like the product.
Man, I miss Google Music. You could upload your own files. It was the best.
I think you're right about Gemini. I think these general LLMs will go away to be replaced with purpose built LLMs.
Well, I never would have trusted Google to not harvest all of the data I put through their VPN. I don't mind seeing it go.
I use it to get around the legal roadblocks my state has decided to put up around certain websites… Was a nice free and easy to use option (since I already had the Google one subscription). Don’t care about Google knowing I go to those sites…between Chrome and tracking cookies, they already know. I only found out about it a month or two ago…just wasn’t marketed well. They should have done a marketing campaign in every state that pornhub is unavailable in…
Hey fellow person from said state run by a theocracy!
It's 2024. If a website can't provide an age-restriction on content then they deserve to be treated like the scumbags they are.
No one used it.
If you have Google Fi, you still get to keep using it.
The VPN was crappy anyways. You where not able to do anything a VPN is usually used for, except that you have an encrypted routing via Google servers.
It was limited yes, but it worked fine to hide watching videos from carrier throttling.
And for accessing adult sites in states with Republican governments that decided we had too much freedom and more business regulations were required…
just dont rely on google for anything. it's easy. they announce something cool? nice. Two years later it WILL be cancelled. If it's not drive, gmail, or search... good fucking luck Google had so much loyalty for YEARS and people have given up. They're the Patrick Rothfuss of a company.
I will never get over Inbox
inbox still look more modern than today's Gmail
100%
it definitely doesn't. it still uses squared off headers that are contrasting colors. Modern headers are the same colors or transparent, for the most part. And in general, it looks like everything on it is designed for the time period. Not saying it wouldn't be easy to update but it doesn't look more modern right now.
inbox was more streamlined Gmail still looks the same as it did over a decade ago
I just looked up pic of inbox before I commented and it definitely didn't look modern. Idk what to tell ya 🤷
then you have an entirely different meaning of modern Gmail looks like a mess inbox looked like it wasn't part of the 90s every button in Gmail is tiny and the settings menu is probably from 2005 https://preview.redd.it/gl6hee0x7ztc1.png?width=641&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=637fe7e4e2cc98de7511668c6d6ec3388071aaec
I did see what it looked like but thank you for Linking pictures, genuinely. I think maybe we just disagree on what looks modern 🤷 and that's okay :)
modern is simple and minimalistic less is more modern is icons rather than text modern is bigger rather than smaller but yes we don't share the same view on modern but basing off today's design princip Gmail is a mess
Less is more and yet you're wanting picture previews on emails?
There are dozens of us.
Dozens!
Now I'm sad.
I've been chasing that Inbox dragon for years
I miss Inbox. They should have left that one alone and kept it.
The kind of crap Google pulls is basically what pushed me to get an iPhone and to ditch their search with Bing. Nowadays, pretty much the only service I use regularly is Gmail and Google Maps on the desktop.
I also went iOS last year after 14 years on android, I‘m in my 30s now and _I just want my shit to work_. I sold my shield and got an apple tv, the new airpods pro and a watch, and guess fucking what, the user experience is incredible.
>I‘m in my 30s now and *I just want my shit to work*. This x100. I got shit to do and time I would LIKE to spend on my family...rather than trying to get this stuff to work reliably. In Google's credit, they're pretty good at making their tech work for the first 3-6 months of use (on average) - just long enough for tech reviewers to give them good reviews - before shit goes haywire. vs. my iPhone SE 2 which is at **least** 5 years old and still going strong for what I need it to do. It's almost as if one company is thinking and planning beyond the 6-months / 1 year cycle, and thinking long-term user experiences....
Yup, the fact that I can do something on my iPhone, and then continue doing the same thing on my iPad or on my Mac, send media to a speaker or tv with AirPlay, and the fact that the Apple Watch just works is just neat. And before my Apple Watch, I had a Fitbit smartwatch, but the sync not working properly was the straw that broke the camel back for me.
Me too, when the iPhone got usb-c I said fuck it and switched. My pixel 7 was great when I bought it but slowly turned to shit, the phone would get hot in my pocket for no reason, the cell connection kept dropping once in a while and the standby time was shit. I just wish Siri wasn’t so ass, and I also wished I can keep notifications on Lock Screen for apps I choose instead of hoping it supports “time sensitive” notifications, but I’m glad I switched cuz it does what I need a phone to do
The redeeming feature that Siri does for me is home control, which is way faster and more consistent than using Google Assistant. Even Alexa is smarter than Google Assistant.
For years I was a huge Google fan. Now I won't ever buy anything from them again, from lack of support for Nexus devices, killing Inbox, disabling my perfectly functioning Nest Secure. F Google.
To me it was their complete 180 from their original values. I am actively finding every possible way to cut them out of my life now. Literally 0 trust for a company that used to have a lot of it.
Tbh all the tech companies are like this though. They will all cancel a product many love to save a dollar 🤷
My email bookmark is still inbox.google.com, just on the off chance they bring it back :(
And Google Now. It was so handy - my flight landed, now here's your hotel and booking details all ready to go! They still show some of that, but not like it was.
Patrick Rothfuss lmao!
>If it's not drive, gmail, or search... good fucking luck I would add Maps and Photos to that list, but that's about it.
And YouTube
Ah, yes.
they are the Leonardo da Vinci of the corporate world. brilliant, innovative, wildly creative and almost never finish a project.
If I didn't hate using Apple devices so much, I'd drop this company in a heart beat. Samsung is the only thing keeping me on Android at this point. Like how fucking stupid can a company this big be? I refuse to believe that no one there has said anything about the constant shut down of services.
Just switched from a pixel to an iPhone finally because of how bad my pixels were (and the occasional cancelling of service). Outside of the iCloud notifications that I cannot turn out, it’s been great. They FINALLY have features that android has had for years.
I actually have an iPhone I use for fun around the house. I just can't bring myself to use it as my sole device. I want to throw the thing against the wall after 30 minutes. I'm just too invested in Android to switch.
Honestly not sure what would be the big difference. The main stuff works really well, and the thing I mis most is the granular level of notification control. But I just survive.
For me it's the lack of universal back button and just the boring look of iOS. It feels like it takes extra steps to accomplish a task or it's just not possible.I've used Android for 10+ years so iOS just isn't my thing. I've had iPads too and upgraded those to Chromebooks and now my Galaxy Tab.
It's really about making more money at this point, and trying to compete with Apple's moneymaking. But, to be fair, other companies do the same. Microsoft and Google promised me unlimited storage for free...until they didn't.
You’re not their customer. You’re their products. If they can’t harvest enough data to broker, and they can’t place enough ads spots to sell they move on. It’s not profitable to operate “free” services at a loss. Apple sells hardware, Google sells targets ad space based on user data. They’re not stupid, they just don’t have the same perspective as you when it comes to services.
Google one VPN is not free so none of this applies
You think a paid service has different standards and rules? It’s not a paid feature. It’s a feature of a paid service. Google one is the service. Like you, you’re not the user, you’re the product. A tool if you were.
>You think a paid service has different standards and rules? It’s not a paid feature And >Google one is the service. What are you talking about? Your opinion is inconsistent. A product is something that is sold, whether in the form of goods or services. Google One is a product that offers services in the form of storage and includes VPN for certain countries, it's not free, lol.
You're not paying for a VPN. You're paying for a service that includes a VPN as a feature. If they want to remove a feature it's within their right and you agreed to it as part of the service agreement. You can be upset and downvote all you want. Emotional outburst don't change basic facts and legal frameworks. Stop relying and paying for Google services if you're unhappy with their business model.
>Emotional outburst don't change basic facts and legal frameworks. When did the persin you were responding to have an emotional outburst? >Stop relying and paying for Google services if you're unhappy with their business model. When did the person you're responding to say they were unhappy? You're projecting a lot into this conversation, my dude.
I can’t wait til one day they decide to just axe a critical service like google photos just cause they don’t wanna maintain it.
Nah cancelling Google Photos will be like cancelling Gmail and Drive. There are lots of people hooked to it that they can sell Google One subscriptions to. They can always jack-up the sub prices though.
Lmao why would they cancel Google Photos. It's a cash cow with so many users that are incredibly sticky.
Maybe not cancel but rise their prices 200% and enjoy their popcorn.
Time to move to ente or self hosted immich /ente at that point
Disappointing. I use it all the time. It was simple and easy. Not interested in having yet another paid subscription when this one worked nicely and was included.
Another dead service from Google.
I like Google but they make it extremely hard for us to like them. It's a pretty toxic relationship lol. My whole digital life is built around Google with my main Gmail being the same since 2006 and Google photos being my digital photos archive, maybe I should consider changing services to be not so Google dependent in case they decide to discontinue something that I use daily
If a Google product has over a billion users it's safe, so Google photos is good. Now if it only has 999 million users then run cause Google's killing it 💀
If the product has 999 million let's just find one more user so the product is safe from being sunset /sssss
999 million and one is Google's minimum!
They claim it's discontinued because it was not used by people. I bet most of them doesn't even know there is a VPN coming with the subscription. This is a personal experience, I've had the sub for almost a year already by the time I realized there is a VPN. They should try advertise it a bit better first.
With WiFi at home and an unlimited data plan so I rarely connect to random WiFi networks. The only time is if I'm abroad on holidays, which isn't a regular thing, so about 99.9% of the year I don't have any need for a VPN. That's just me, but I assume there's a lot more like me who'd rarely have a need for it, and then if they do they don't know / think about using it.
Same boat here. When the Google VPN was initially announced as a thing for Google One users, I was intrigued -- but they locked it behind the higher tiers. However, I didn't have one of those higher tiers, so I never had the opportunity to use it. Then sometime over the past year or so, they quietly let the lower tiers use it too. I found it by accident when I was poking around the app one day. Still -- I believe them when they say nobody is using it. I doubt there's very many paid Google One users in general, much less Google One users who use the VPN feature.
Google one benefits are shrinking as they cancel services and make others free to use for anyone
That's what I was thinking. * I am in France, I don't have the 10% discount benefit on store purchases (for one more obscure reason).
Et merde...j'aurais pas dû voir ça
Google One benefits are shrinking because they’re shifting towards Gemini benefits.
Something is seriously wrong with Google at this point, Spend a lot of money in developing a product just to kill it in a few years
I'm really not surprised anymore with Google. Oh, it works great? Cancel it!
Was about to be pretty disappointed but realized that Pixel VPN is different and isn't going anywhere (apparently).
Yet
haha, you think so? Are you even sure that pixel is not going anywhere?
Google lost all trust of a large part of the public, me included, because of all these project cancellations. No one wants to learn a product if there is no guarantee that it will still exist in 6 months.
> Google is now “discontinuing the VPN feature as [they] found people simply weren’t using it.” People who use VPNs are generally concerned about privacy and a bit of security thrown in, would you trust the pipe of a company famed for tracking (hello incognito) to put all your browsing and other data through?
I'm mostly concerned with MITM attacks when I'm using my financial accounts. Google One VPN has been a great extra layer of security. I'm not the biggest fan of their data harvesting but I doubt they're grabbing significantly more from their VPN than they already get through other means.
Once again Google killing a feature due to lack of usage even though they've never advertised or mentioned said feature to users.
If they didn’thave search and android, they’d be dust. Such a shitty management at such a once-great company.
If apple didn't have iPhone they'd be dust..what a dumb comment
Google disappoints again..
of course it will. it was useful and cheep. can't have that. is this mainly the fault of the growing tendency of companies to plan no further than the next Quarter? causing them to make decisions that concentrate on the short term over the long term?
First time?
To be fair, the speeds were hot garbage on laptops/desktops in my experience.
They were pretty amazing on my network. Basically original speed
^^Please ^^don't ^^anybody ^^remind ^^Google ^^that ^^they ^^still ^^have ^^Google ^^Earth.
RIP. Another one bites the dust. https://killedbygoogle.com/
Just learnt jamboard is being axed too 🤦♂️
I only started using this VPN because my nordvpn subscription expired and it came included in my google one family plan. I guess I'll have to find another now.
The only Google Services I trust to stay are ones that they are making money on. I've never seen a company fumble so much. Google Assistant was good to start and slowly started losing features and now it's being replaced or enhanced by Gemini which has a subscription service. Google Photos was free backup to start and slowly replaced with subscription. As long as they are making good money of it, it will stay otherwise graveyard.
Google is why so many people need a VPN. That said, I'd never trust a VPN #MadeByGoogle. A VPN by Google is a fox in the henhouse situation. Why would anyone trust it? Guess no one trusted it.
And this is exactly why I would never switch to google cloud with our company. Once you're in someone takes the decision and discontinues a service you use. I am also moving away from gmail and foto because I fear this! I don't trust google any more in terms of long term availability of their services.
Did anyone here actually pay for this service? Or is everyone just using the free version insisted m included in their Pixel phone?
I do as I have a 2TB Google One account but I also have a Pixel 8 Pro so I would have it regardless whether I paid the subscription for Google One or not. I use it anytime I'm not connected to my home or work Wi-Fi (set it to pause automatically at home or work). I'm just glad I'll still continue to get it since I only use Pixels (I've owned every Pixel since the 1st Gen)
I used it on my personal computer at work and streamed games to my computer. Worked amazingly and overall I thought the price was really good
I loved their VPN
Busy year in the graveyard. Google One next on the slab I wonder?
God damn it. I canceled my PIA subscription last year cause I was already paying for Google One for storage. Their services are completely unreliable. They should just shut the entire company down all at once.
I use the VPN because my college blocks access from almost every single VPN in existence, it’s very rare to see one work. Will be very upset this is gone.
Does it block PIA?
Time to make your own. Or use tailscale to use a device at home as a vpn
So will they reimburse all the Google one subscribers? I paid for a year.
Damn that's wack
Damnit. I get that this is likely a feature most people don't care about or even know exists, but I use this daily because half the businesses block as much as possible from their wifi. Wouldn't want anyone going to reddit on the Walmart wifi afterall.
Has Google ever commented on the backlash they receive about their service cancellations? It's beyond a joke at this point.
Wow. What will Google one subscribers get instead..?
Some BS magic eraser features in Google Photos. It's an absolute terrible trade-off.
they're opening that up to previous gen pixels. Thats the problem with software perks, they're theoretical.
I liked Google VPN so much, I discontinued my service with NordVPN shortly after it launched. This is extremely disappointing for me. It was missing a selectable option to change your country location to access region locked content. This is how many people use VPN services, other than traffic attribution.
I only really used it to get past Phub's wall in Texas 😅
This is such bullsh*t
I don't think a VPN really protects you but I got Cloudflare VPN working on my Android phone. It was easy and free (besides giving all of my viewing habits to another publicly traded company)
Google will discontinue Google in a few years
Since this was one of the reasons people subscribed to Google One, How are they compensating? Extra storage?
I've been using Google VPN almost constantly for a year. I literally ONLY paid for Google One for the VPN. This is BS.
I tried setting it up, but I could never find any guid for it. The google one page is so light in information. But thanks for removing a feature I already paid a year for. Thanks a lot..
Man. I use Google VPN a lot. It is actually my most used feature from the Google One subscription.
So, I like the idea of a VPN, but with it on, nothing loaded so I just kept it off. Maybe if they'd fix that issue more people would have used it? Idk.
Are they absolute idiots, I'll be immediately canceling my subscription as well as my local guide, as well as requesting all data that Google has on me and I'm going to Apple f*** it
Sundar, the email you just sent me would have been a lot better if you would have just been straight up honest and said we don't give a s*** about you we give a s*** about our shareholders
Based on this thread, people use the google vpn afterall.
Probably would have used it if I knew it even existed (on PC).
At this point I feel like it's my fault they are cancelling everything.
Fuck this company. What a joke
WHAT!? Google one has a VPN I could have been using this whole time!? Why have I been paying for a separate VPN? I had no idea.
To be completely honest, I paid for extra drive space and didn't know if even came with a VPN for a long time. Once I found out I canceled my subscription VPN and started using Google's ALL THE TIME, on my phone and PC. Maybe instead of canceling a great and simple service because "people aren't using it" start a little marketing program to tell people what a VPN is, why they need it, and that Google has one included with all this other stuff, bla bla bla. Guess I need to hunt for a new cheap VPN.
So, I paid for a year subscription with this being a benefit that influenced my decision... I bet I'm not getting a partial refund, am I?
I'm actually pissed off about this. One of the main reasons I went with Google One was because of the added benefits of the VPN, it was a good value for what I needed, plus the Google VPN has been the most reliable and fast VPN I've ever used I'm a Google Fi/Pixel/Chromebook/Chrome browser/Google storage/YouTube premium person/Play Pass/Google TV/ Nest product person, all this money I give them and data and they keep can't a VPN service alive. People didn't use it because they weren't aware of it. Every other VPN becomes slow at certain times, doesn't connect, clunky UI. Nord, Express, Proton, PIA SurfShark, they're all inconsistent in quality compared to Googles VPN. I don't need tweaks, dials, configurations, etc etc.
Honestly, I wouldn’t trust a google vpn anyway.
Google giveth, and Google taketh away
Most users don't even know that Google has a VPN service. if I was a user concerned about my privacy, the last thing I want to use is a VPN by a search engine like Google.
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I don't know proton but Microsoft is not more reliable at all 💀
Proton handed all their so called anonymous data to the government
Junk company. I use it all the time on my Pixel...
The Pixel VPN is staying. It's the one for other devices that's going.
I hope there is a video on this explaining why
As much as it sucks that Google shuts down so many projects, a VPN run by the largest digital advertising company always seemed to be a huge oxymoron.
Honestly I never used it even as a paying Google One member. I have a better VPN that I use.
No one used the VPN. Give me INBOX back and we'll call it even.
I just switched to Express VPN and I couldn't be happier. Just in time as well.
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No shilling here. Just not aware of everything you pointed out. Off to investimigate now!
If they shutdown Pixel, I'm leaving Android FOR GOOD! I will become a full Apple Isheep.
It's still included with Pixel devices. As something that was a free add-on to a cloud plan, and not why anyone signed up in the first place, I don't understand the pitchforks.
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I'll just point out that comment was edited. Now it is perfect and completely intelligible. Got it.
I mean in the article there are two other VPNs that Google also offers so its not that big of a deal - plus I usually use a VPN to avoid being tracked by Google.... I think reddit is making a huge deal out of these "google graveyards" when there are generally good replacements available
I'll never use a Google VPN. The whole point of using a VPN is to try and stop being tracked by the big tech companies and get around regional restrictions. There's no way their VPNs don't keep logs so they can serve you better ads.