[OT] Managing Google Groups headaches

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Tue, 03 Dec 2013 16:30:05 +1000, alex23 wrote:

> On 3/12/2013 11:17 AM, Michael Torrie wrote:
>> And Gmail is also becoming less useful to me.  I don't want to use
>> hangouts; xmpp and google talk worked just fine.  But alas that's
>> disappearing.
> 
> I really hate Hangouts. If I wanted to use Skype I would be using Skype.
> 
> I'm also still unable to understand why Google scrapped Reader and kept
> Groups, although I suspect it's because the latter will eventually
> integrate more closely with Plus & Hangouts.


Not aimed specifically at either Michael or Alex, but a general 
observation aimed at you all.

You poor fools you, this is what happens when you give control of the 
tools you use to a (near) monopolist whose incentives are not your 
incentives.

I mean, Microsoft was bad enough, but they could never reach through the 
aether into your computer and remove software they no longer wanted you 
to use. The worst that could happen was that they would stop supporting 
it and you'd be stuck with old obsolete hardware running old obsolete 
software that nevertheless did exactly what you want. Google, on the 
other hand, can and will take away software that you use.


-- 
Steven