Never Put Your Eggs In One Basket, Even If It's Google Basket!!
What is the first thing comes to your mind when I say Google?
Maybe Youtube? or Google Search? or Translate? or Maps? There are many of those products out there, and they are embedded into our day-to-day activities! If I calculate the time I spent on Google products during the day, I can confidently say that I spent up to 100% of my time on Google products!
I use Google Chrome as my default browser; I use the Android OS on my phone and store my photos on Google Photos! I Translate documents with Google Translate and get directions with Google Maps! Who doesn't? I use Youtube to search for any video I want to watch or YouTube Music to find music! I open Google news to check the news! I take notes on Google Keep and use Google Tasks for my todos! I open Google Docs to write a blog or Google Sheets to calculate and track my investments! I pay with Google Pay and listen to any podcast via Google podcasts! I even have Google TV and maybe 10 Google Nest devices installed in my home!
Do you see my mistake?
Yes, I centralized my whole LIFE in the hands of Google! I did that myself because it's convenient and easy to connect all these apps! And become part of the "Google Tribe."
For a regular user like you or me, all we want is what is "easy" to connect and consume your information anywhere! Right? Everything is on the cloud nowadays. We think we can access this data anytime and anywhere! We believe that we have control, don't we?
WRONG! We are keeping our data in the hands of Google, and that's what I figured out after 15 years of using almost ALL google products; they disabled my account with no warning, reasoning, or anything!
Days have passed, and I'm losing money as I write this blog, and I will keep doing it! I have no access to any of my domains, files, contacts, photos, or emails … I have nothing and all that happened in one second! All I received from Google, and I quote,
"You violated our term of use! Please refer to our terms of use if you want more details."
Yes, it was an automatic reply, no human involved (Welcome to The Future!)!
I’m writing this and I’m still fighting with Google to get my account back! I can’t just accept the fact that I lost my data even after I saw and read crazy stories on the internet about people lost their account just like that!
The lesson I learned the hard way is NEVER PUT YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET! EVEN IF THAT BASKET IS GOOGLE! I GUESS, ESPECIALLY IF ITS GOOGLE!
Technology is getting more and more dangerous! Not everyone is aware of this! Big companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, and the rest are taking advantage of this! For them, we are just "Users."
I never thought I would say that, but I don't want to use Google services anymore! And If I have to use it, I will be cautious about what I agree on! and how to distribute that! I was always the fanboy of Google, but not anymore!
I'm writing this because I believe no one should be treated like this, not by Google, Facebook, or anyone! No one should live in fear that the next mistake (if you made one) in any of Google products will be the last one!
If you are curious about the whole story I published, I post them weekly on my website managernotes.com.
