Is Google having a total breakdown right now???

So, I’m sure we all know about the WEI thing at this point, which is bad and weird enough; and also the sudden move to block ad-blockers on YouTube. I don’t know how that’s going to work out, but it’s pretty irritating. Not to mention, going to the gym, coming home, and suddenly getting loads of fitness-related ads piled on top of you… so I’m clearly being tracked.

Now I’m hearing that YouTube, which seems to just want to pile AI-topic-related tabloid TV on me in its recommendations, is now increasing its price per month for premium by a whopping two bucks, to $13.99. That’s as much as Netflix. So I can be ad-free on freakin’ YouTube, with contented created basically for them, for the same price as a network that actually takes responsibility for its shows.

The clear problems with Netflix notwithstanding, that’s another subject for another day.

It’s one thing after another these days. It’s been a while since I was a web designer/developer, but what does it look like from the front lines? Exactly how much hot water are they in?

On a further note, I’m reading the writing on the wall at this point and am wishing to begin to entirely remove myself from dependency on Google services. Docs, Drive, Mail, everything. Not easy, I know. Is there a list of competing (and possibly fediverse-ish) products out there somewhere?

scarrtt,

Advertising spend has dried up and the shareholders are looking for growth. I don’t mind paying for YouTube Premium but I get it much cheaper than that because I connect via VPN when I pay for it. I use Romania but other people recommend Turkey or Argentina or any of the other countries that are having issues with their currencies.

Evil_Shrubbery,

Yeah, but supporting Google & their practices still might not be the best thing … If possible, I avoid Google services

Pechente,

Yep that’s the best way in my opinion. People recommend alternative Youtube frontends all the time but there’s none that works cross-platform, unfortunately.

The discounted rate through other countries is the best way to get Premium perks without giving Google a shitload of money they certainly don’t deserve.

I registered through Turkey. Last month’s bill was 1.04€.

leviosa,

I’ve wondered what their figures are looking like now that alternative platforms are gaining popularity. Possible shrinkage of users? I know that a lot of content creators are publishing on multiple platforms now. When that happens a company typically starts to milk existing customers for more money to maintain shareholder value (short term).

drekly,

Ad spend probably dried up because they’re fucking over the advertisers.

I work with Google ads every day, it’s my job.

Google for the last 7 years have been trying fuck over their customers constantly,pushing changes that make them spend money on irrelevant searches, pushing automation and telling them it’ll be better (it never is).

Confidence is just at an all time low, and they keep finding more ways to make it worse. I have to literally warm my customers not to listen to the Google reps because they’re third party sales companies hired to push these new tactics that end up costing them more money with less return.

You’d think they’d try and impress customers with great sales figures, but instead they seem to just be pushing short term profits and fucking everyone over, making the platform a minefield

ImpossibleRubiksCube,

Wow, I didn’t realize that it’s been going on for that long… Stone Soup, I suppose.

ImpossibleRubiksCube,

I just had a friend suggest that I should “switch to an iPhone”. I wanted to smack him.

flumph,
@flumph@programming.dev avatar

Now I’m hearing that YouTube is now increasing its price per month for premium by a whopping two bucks, to $13.99. That’s as much as Netflix. So I can be ad-free on freakin’ YouTube, with contented created basically for them, for the same price as a network that actually takes responsibility for its shows.

To be fair, that $13.99 also includes a Spotify clone ($10.99/month) Should they separate the two and only charge $3 for ad free YouTube? Absolutely.

ImpossibleRubiksCube,

I hope you don’t actually expect them to do that though.

flumph,
@flumph@programming.dev avatar

Oh no, not at all. They’ll probably do the Amazon Prime route and bundle as much as possible in one high fee. See Google One getting a VPN stuck in it recently.

Peppycito,

Google music, or whatever they currently call it, was absolutely trash last time I used it. That was a couple years ago and it’s Google, so I’m sure it’s even worse now.

flumph,
@flumph@programming.dev avatar

It hasn’t changed. The things that are dumb are still there and they introduced a new feature to copy station seeding and did a bad job of that too.

Burnt,

Google Play Music was actually the best music streaming service I had used. Their radios actually stuck to a genre and would often give you good recommendations on artists that weren’t already in your library. They did the usual Google though and deprecated it for YouTube Music, which frankly has a trash radio algorithm in comparison.

Saneless,

Shareholder squeeze

They demand more but consumers/users are less interested. All you have left is raise prices, force users to use/see things more, or make it harder to avoid being an income stream from something else

They can’t make new people appreciate the service so they just make it worse for those who have stuck around. The enshittification spiral

mrmacduggan,

This, and the higher interest rates also mean that capital isn’t “free” anymore and so their horizons before taking profits from any given investment have to be shorter to make the same amount they used to make.

ares35,
ares35 avatar

that happens everywhere. worst offenders might be the cable companies. people keep ditching cable, so overall revenue decreases. they jack up rates for those remaining to make up for it. then they punish the internet-only customers by raising their rates, too, to recoup the 'lost' profits from them not also being tv subscribers.

LollerCorleone,
LollerCorleone avatar

Privacy Guides is a great place for you to look at a highly curated list of reliable and privacy-focused alternatives https://www.privacyguides.org/en/tools/

And here is an another list that I have also found useful https://github.com/Lissy93/awesome-privacy

ImpossibleRubiksCube,

This is great!

alexcoder04,

mastodon.neilzone.co.uk/@neil/110778983752450245

bsdGuy0, 

<span style="color:#323232;">I think I left Google just in the nick of time.
</span>

My Google usage has stopped entirely (exept through alt frontends), and I also deleted my Google account. They will continue to promote their needless services, and even shove it down your throats. I wish good luck for us all, since Google will most likely continue to do this, and attempt to enact further restrictions upon the internet.

Crozekiel,

I can do all that on my computer life easily but have no idea how to drop Google 100% on my phone, without switching to apple and frankly fuck that.

Do you have any tips or can you point me in the direction of resources for having an android smartphone that is functional but not tied to Google behind every curtain?

superkret,

Install F-Droid and Aurora store (PlayStore frontend that downloads apps for you with its own anonymous account).
Export your contacts and other data from Google apps to local storage and research alternative apps.
Then remove and delete your Google account.
You can then disable all Google apps on your settings, just be aware that a lot of non-free apps rely on Google Play Services, and the Google app provides text-to-speech as well as speech recognition. There are no viable alternatives for that yet.

But without an account tied to the data they send, Google can do a lot less with it.

Crozekiel,

Thank you for the tips. I’ll start working towards that now :)

superkret,

I’ve written a more detailed list here: feddit.de/post/2365036

There’s some good tips in the comments, too.

ImpossibleRubiksCube,

I just jumped on YouTube on the app, and it immediately encouraged me to continue my subscription before I viewed any videos. It seems that they can sweeten the deal…

You see, they’ll also be “your best friend”.

Ekis,

If you’re trying to DeGoogle, you can receive some help and info by checking out the lemmy.ml/c/degoogle community.

sloppy_diffuser,

That’s capitalism… Always have to be growing profits. Investors don’t want stable profits where their dollar won’t grow. When growth by improving products cost more than just gouging your current market share, you get enshitification.

ImpossibleRubiksCube,

Especially weird given that there is no infinite profit, and that really isn’t how money works. And yet.

some_guy,

It’s absolute insanity. We let Wall Street demand enshitification across the board. We need to take their power away.

A sane market would let a company get to a certain size and market cap and say, “Hey, we’re making a lot of money, let’s try to stay roughly here unless we have great ideas.” Instead, we have this bullshit.

ImpossibleRubiksCube,

People need to stop treating capitalism like it’s a golden calf, or a complete and sustainable theory.

Hopscotch,

Is there a list

One list to look at is

prism-break.org

Twink,

I use Linux as my OS, force disable most of Google apps on Android, Qwant as my search engine and I use YouTube less and less since the quality tanked. I believe there’s Nebula as an alternative. I’ve been trying to get into Twitch, but there’s ads in spite of uBlock. I’m ok paying for subs if they’re reasonable. But they aren’t.

mr_rusty_shackleford,

For search I switched to DuckDuckGo as my default years ago with little notice, and only use Google search occasionally when I’m shopping. I noticed last week they are starting to hammer you with the sign in prompt every time I use it so they can more easily track my searches That’s a bad sign for things to come, the free ride might be over. The only thing Google I actually use these days is YouTubeTv because it gives a cable TV experience without having to deal with Comcast. Would love to hear suggestions for competitors so I can disconnect completely.

Lyricism6055,

Yarr matey. I just wanted to tell you about jellyfin

Squizzy,

Oh the sign in prompt is everywhere, can’t watch porn without being recommended to sign in with your Google. Even in incognito it suggests it.

Mikina,

When did the ad-blocker block happen? Is it something recent? My adblocker still seems to work, but I am running PiHole in addition to LibreFox with adnauseam.io.

ImpossibleRubiksCube,

Don’t worry… they’ll get to you soon enough.

exscape,
exscape avatar

They're trying it for some users, I think.

Arghblarg,
@Arghblarg@lemmy.ca avatar

If you’re willing to learn a bit of tech self-support :), consider running your own server box with NextCloud – there are calendar, media player plugins, etc. There are Android and iOS Nextcloud drive clients, a news reader, …

It’s not all quite as slick as Google Photos/Drive and so on, but very very usable.

Another alternative is the Proton suite (Protonmail, ProtonVPN, Proton Calendar, Drive, …) they do charge a small amount but you get their added security.

leviosa,

Yes, or something like [murena]{murena.io} which is a free (for 1GB or pay for more storage) cloud service that runs on NextCloud. It’s what /e/OS uses for storing/syncing calendar etc.

ImpossibleRubiksCube,

I’m willing to pay a small, or at least reasonable-for-the-service, amount; and I just found out about Proton. Thanks for sharing!

LollerCorleone,
LollerCorleone avatar

Also check out Skiff and CryptPad if you are looking for Google Docs alternatives.

ImpossibleRubiksCube,

May I ask why this suggestion is unpopular?

LollerCorleone,
LollerCorleone avatar

I have no idea. Both are solid services with sound privacy credentials and recommended by Privacy Guides (Cryptpad as a productivity tool and Skiff for its mail service). I use both regularly and have been able to completely replace Google Docs because of them. The only reason I can think of anyone down-voting my suggestion is that Skiff is not fully open source yet, but they are in the process of making it so.

ImpossibleRubiksCube,

Yet again, everybody downvotes. 😆 Guys, at least inform me of the issue here, these sound like reasonable alternatives. I’m going to assume that they are.

LollerCorleone,
LollerCorleone avatar

I am also curious to know the reason. The downvoting seem to be only happening in programming.dev instance though. Things are still sane here in kbin.social.

In the absence of any explanation, I am just going to assume there are a lot of Google Docs fans in this community.

ImpossibleRubiksCube,

Yeah, whatever though. Thanks for contributing.

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