Technology
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
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Gmail is just one interface in the Google ecosystem. Docs, Photos, Drive, Calendar, etc. etc. are all integrated into Gmail.
Also if you haven't tried to change your email in 2023, it's a fucking giant pain in the ass. Companies simply dont even consider that anyone will want to do that.
I have had companies that refuse to change it. I've had companies where I change it and some emails go to the new address and some to the old, with no apparent way to update it. I've had people continue to send it to the old address despite being reminded several times and also asking them repeatedly to delete it. I've had companies outright refuse to change my email address to the extent that I had to cancel my account and create a new one.
Hard disagree. That's the easiest. Just switch to LibreTube, FreeTube and/or or GrayJay. Boom, done.
I moved away from gmail this year and have experienced absolutely none of these things.
And you don't need an account on YouTube to watch content there. NewPipe works just fine for me without an account, so not only do I not get ads, I also get no tracking and still get the content I want.
Changing my email on the dozens of services I use is a giant pain in the butt. I'm planning to ditch my Gmail account, but it'll involve a transition period where I set up a bunch of forwards so I don't miss stuff.
The most difficult one for me is Google Docs because I use a lot of Google-specific spreadsheet stuff, like Tiller integration (I don't use Excel) and stock price lookups.
So other than Google Sheets and Gmail, I honestly don't use my Google account for anything important.
There is a way to create a Google account with an external email address. If you don't have anything tied to your Google original account, it could be a way to access Google tools.
I have an account on a site where your email is your username for logging. When I changed my email address for a new one, I had to keep the username being the old email address, it doesn't make sense...
Docs and Sheets are my real challenges to give up
Yeah, this was my issue when trying to switch to Proton. Even on PopOS, I can sign into my Gmail account and get my email, calendar, cloud storage… They’re just there, in the desktop. Same with my phone. Proton I could get to work with Thunderbird… if I let them run their app in the background. I could subscribe to my calendar on desktop… But can’t add or edit events. Cloud storage access required upload/download from a browser.
It’s the annoyance of switching all my accounts, yes, but it’s also that everything feels disjointed and half-baked compared to Gmail right now. I’ll be checking in on Proton and when they can get 90% there, then I’ll switch.