Mike Elgan predicts that Google will end Gmail within the next five years.
The company hasn't announced such a move -- nor would it. But whether we like it or not, and whether even Google knows it or not, Gmail is doomed.
Email was created to serve as a "dumb pipe". In mobile network parlance, a "dumb pipe" is when a carrier exists to simply transfer bits to and from the user, without the ability to add services and applications or serve as a "smart" gatekeeper between what the user sees and doesn't see.
Carriers resist becoming "dumb pipes" because there's no money in it. A pipe is a faceless commodity, valued only by reliability and speed. In such a market, margins sink to zero or below zero, and it becomes a horrible business to be in.
The fact is that Google, and companies like Google, hate unmediated anything. The reason is that Google is in the algorithm business, using user-activity "signals" to customize and personalize the online experience and the ads that are served up as a result of those signals. Google exists to mediate the unmediated. That's what it does. That's what the company's search tool does: It mediates our relationship with the Internet.
The bottom line is that dumb-pipe email is unmediated, and therefore it's a business that Google wants to get out of as soon as it can.
Does SN agree with this analysis (rant) ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 25 2014, @09:29PM
Google apps for business is a money-spinner although it's put many smaller providers out of business.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by g2 In The Desert on Saturday October 25 2014, @09:33PM
That's a pretty naive view. If they didn't go through the email and deliver ads (for which they are paid), it might make sense. As it is, it doesn't.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Appalbarry on Saturday October 25 2014, @09:39PM
Exactly. Gmail doesn't exist in a vacuum - people who use it also use search, and contact lists, and maps, and calendar, and Drive, and Chrome, and, on rare occasions, Google+.
The value is that Google can aggregate all of that data and form a more complete picture of their users.
That's why Google's ad placements are usually of interest to me, while Facebook and Twitter keep flinging stuff in my face that that seems more or less random.
Which is why Google probably rules with advertisers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Sunday October 26 2014, @12:43AM
I wish it was true, but as you show, it's likely to be around for ages. I don't use gmail (except for the email or account or whatever it was I had to do to setup my phone), but I hate sending email to gmail addresses (or yahoo or msn for that matter). Anyway, google doesn't just get info from its own users, it gets info from the non-users the gmail users communicate with even though we've not agreed to their terms and conditions.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Sunday October 26 2014, @10:49AM
Really? Cause I call "targeted ads" by the more accurate name "shit I cared about in the past which I don't want now or never did" because that is always what I end up with, shit I USED to care about but not anymore or have ZERO interest in but is kinda sorta in the same ballpark.
The easiest example would be when I decided to get rid of my laptop for a netbook, I did my research, checked out the different brands and bought one....and then proceeded to get nothing but netbook ads for a good 6 months! Its not even smart in its targeting, as I look for a socket 775 chip for a customer what do I get? A shitload of ads for weeks about the latest Haswell CPUs! Yeah because I spent hours specifically looking for 775 and ONLY 775, of course I want to shitcan everything and go for the latest overpriced CPU from Intel, right? I look for AM3+? Get tons of ads for laptops, look up reviews of the new PC game? of course I'm actually repressing and want and Xbone!.../facepalm/
Ultimately their ads ain't got fuck all to do with you and your intersts, its all about who is willing to buy ad space, sometimes they might mesh, more often its total crap.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1) by arulatas on Monday October 27 2014, @04:17PM
For me it was targeted car adds after buying a car.
----- 10 turns around
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday October 27 2014, @04:55PM
And I bet you got those ads for fricking MONTHS even though you didn't do a single search after buying your car, right? I had the same thing happen when i got this sweet mint condition black GMC Yukon I'm driving now and went online to learn a little about that particular model, what did I get for months afterward? ADS FOR FORD EXPLORER!! Because what does a couple dozen searches for "2001 GMC Yukon" indicate? Why the user is delusional and REALLY wants a Ford Explorer LOL!
This is why I even block the Google text ads now, frankly they have become less than worthless when it comes to offering me anything I might give a toss about.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1) by arulatas on Tuesday October 28 2014, @02:41PM
Still getting them 6 months later.
----- 10 turns around
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 26 2014, @08:39AM
This. It's funny how many people think of google as a search engine company while in fact it's a spy company. And it LOVES all ways to extract information, that's why it has a ton of services. And email is a wonderful service, everybody I know uses it (excluding myself)... so no, it will not be closed.
And think for a second what kind of a treasure trove of metadata it is. The NSA for one loves it as well...
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday October 26 2014, @11:10AM
That argument was supposed to save Google Reader. RIP.
(Score: 3, Funny) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Saturday October 25 2014, @09:37PM
Note the prediction follows the five year rule. If you make a prediction, make it at least five years out into the future. No one will remember your prediction in 5 days, since the news cycle churn will bury it. You'll never be accountable for your prediction's accuracy or lack thereof.
My related predictions:
* Intel will stop making microprocessors in 5 years
* Microsoft will stop making Office in 5 years
* Amazon will stop losing money in 5 years
* Disney will stop making Star Wars movies in 5 years
...etc...
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 4, Funny) by pe1rxq on Saturday October 25 2014, @09:47PM
* PizzaRollPlinkett will be proven right in 5 years.
(Score: 3, Funny) by halcyon1234 on Sunday October 26 2014, @04:11AM
Original Submission [thedailywtf.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 26 2014, @10:56PM
WTF is a "pizza roll"; isn't that a Calzone?
(Score: 2) by arslan on Monday October 27 2014, @01:35AM
* PizzaRollPlinkett will be proven wrong in 5 years.
(Score: 1) by Horse With Stripes on Sunday October 26 2014, @12:05AM
OK, let's see ... I can do this ...
- Windows 8 will be forgotten in five years.
- systemd will be replaced by Amazon's Megalodon as pid 1 in five years.
- My jokes will be funny in five years.
Man, I suck at this.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Ryuugami on Sunday October 26 2014, @12:20AM
- Windows 8 will be forgotten in five years.
Not much of a prediction, Captain Obvious :)
If a shit storm's on the horizon, it's good to know far enough ahead you can at least bring along an umbrella. - D.Weber
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday October 26 2014, @05:36AM
Given that people still remember Microsoft Bob, I'd say that's a very bold prediction, and far from obvious.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday October 26 2014, @11:02AM
Not gonna happen because the Metrologists make the FOSSie faction look like sane rational human beings. In fact they even use some of the FOSSie memes, for example "you don't need that" when it comes to software many used not included in Win 8 like DVD maker, "you are a luddite" for not wanting to do things their way even if it takes twice as long to get half as much done, "year of the Metro start screen" etc. So I would say he is gonna lose that prediction.
As for TFA? Ask MSFT how many they lost when they tried to force their Windows Messenger users to use Skype. Sure the change might look good to Google but that don't mean the users will go for it after all how did that whole real names and G+ thing work out? Email has lasted in its current form for so long because IT WORKS. Its simple, robust, the spam filters have had insanely high success rates for years, when I hear folks complain about their computers? Email ain't among the bitchfests as most are quite happy with the way things are. Google might do well to remember they have competitors and they try to steer their users by the nose and fuck with their email? Well I'm sure yahoo and MSFT will be happy to take that business.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday October 25 2014, @09:40PM
At the outside, Google might end gmail using third party clients.
But even that is unlikely. Google makes boat loads of money providing mail to paying customers. I read somewhere that the paying customers pay for something like half of the total cost of Gmail, based on Wall Street estimates. That is growing daily because of the ease of setting up the service.
When you crank in the advertising revenue from users of the web client ir is a huge money maker. Even if you never use the web client their servers get to scan your content and learn what ads might be worth sending your way.
As for the mediation angle, that's nonsense too. They want to sell ads, not stand between you and your friends. But they've learned the value of having a computer readover your shoulder. Not killing that cash cow. They own the email space with the best spam filtering.
I'm left wondering what the motivation for this story is.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by zocalo on Saturday October 25 2014, @09:46PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday October 25 2014, @10:14PM
Exactly so, especially the part about IM, and Social media.
If Google has learned anything it is that social media is a fickle niche to break into, with multiple failed attempts, iGoogle, Wave, Google Buzz, side wiki, Dodgeball, Jaiku, and probably soon: Google+,
If they keep dicking around with google voice and google hangouts, they will manage to kill those off as well.
The only things that really really caught on are Google Search, Google Maps, and Gmail.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by umafuckitt on Sunday October 26 2014, @09:20AM
Email isn't going away any time soon, despite what some people have been predicting about IM and Social Media killing it, a
My wife is Chinese and, to my astonisment, she tells me that most people in China don't use e-mail at all. If you're an academic you'll have an e-mail address and if you do business abroad you'll have one. Nobody else seems to. Everything goes through one of the walled-garden social media systems, and that includes buying stuff on-line and things of that nature. I had to post something to one of her cousins this week and we attempted to coordinate over a phone chat app. I got frustrated after half an hour as we weren't getting anywhere. I asked him to e-mail me the details instead. I never heard back: he couldn't do it and gave up.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday October 26 2014, @07:45PM
I'm not sure about e-mail not going away. Certainly something that serves the same function will be needed, but spam, in the wider sense, may kill email.
Much of the stuff that I'm calling spam isn't even commercial, it's political, but it's still people trying to grab my attention when I'm trying to do something else, and even just ignoring it takes time and effort. The question is what could replace it, and what should it be called. My guess is it will be called e-mail. And I'd argue that g-mail isn't the same thing as e-mail. It just serves almost the same function.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by ibennetch on Monday October 27 2014, @02:11AM
I think at this point, the spam battle is pervasive through all platforms. I get more text message and IM spam in a day than I do email spam (yes, I use Gmail, and their filtering is really quite good). I'm not in any way disputing the load spam/junk mail puts on mail servers/spam filters or the affect of forged reply addresses or bounced messages, not to mention the time you and I spend deleting junk mail and checking the Spam folder, but I think spam is just as likely to kill text messaging (or Skype or IRC or AIM or...) as it is to kill email.
In part, the problem of "people trying to grab my attention when I'm trying to do something else" is helped by not jumping every time my phone dings. My computer pops up a small notification/alert with the sender and subject, so I do get distracted momentarily when email comes in and I'm at the computer, but by and large now I just ignore my phone and check it on my schedule. Maybe that helps me not feel like I'm constantly being distracted (believe me, I can do that well enough on my own without the help of email!)
(Score: 1) by ibennetch on Monday October 27 2014, @01:59AM
You make several interesting points, but what I latched on to is that people have been predicting that IM and social media will overtake email. I've certainly heard this many times before as well, but it hasn't happened. I'm sure my reasoning has been said many times before as well, but it's because it's all so fragmented.
I have Adium sign in to four different accounts, plus I'm active on two different IRC networks and "participate" (for a very loose definition of the word) in at least three different social media networks. It's all bollocks. I have at least two other protocols that require the official client which I run as needed. With email, I use whatever client I wish; my friends use whatever clients they wish; and in the end we all can communicate without worrying about the technology, pass files easily, and read mail offline/on mobile. Oh, and it doesn't have to be real time; I can send a message while my coworker in Sri Lanka is asleep. I can dig in to an archive file and find a message from ten years ago. Some of the social media or IM clients/protocols allow me to dig in to the history or send files, but none is as easy as my email clients. I think that's why email still reigns in my circle of friends. I was a heavy user of ICQ back in the day, and it had a lot of the features I miss about IM these days, but the market has spoken. It feels like VHS vs Betamax, but whatever.
I think you're right -- Email isn't going away any time soon, and I think in large part it's because IM serves a different role than email. Certainly it's a similar role with some overlap, but I for one have no interest in leaving email any time soon.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Monday October 27 2014, @08:39AM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 1) by daver!west!fmc on Saturday October 25 2014, @10:09PM
I'd argue that e-mail is no longer the same kind of "dumb pipe" that it was in the 1980s and early 1990s. The mediating smarts are the spam filters. I'm not arguing that they're very smart, mind, but a lot of Gmail users think Google's work pretty well.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday October 26 2014, @01:59AM
True, and email is so fast (at least Gmail is) that it is virtually conversational, and it carries its own history if quotes are handled rationally.
It can be archived, searched, and indexed.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday October 25 2014, @10:31PM
Do I misremember, or did Google say they were going to use end-to-end encryption to keep three-letter agencies from reading the mail even if they managed to break into their servers?
That would change the whole adserver angle.
--- hendrik
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday October 25 2014, @10:41PM
That is correct, but that doesn't mean that mail sits on their servers encrypted.
It moves over their own network and the internet using TLS/SSL.
But all of it sits on their servers non-encrypted, or encrypted with their own key, not yours.
They still have to honor subpoenas and NSA letters.
They scan what is in your inbox with software looking for keywords and such.
If you start emailing someone with and neither of you
use the web interface you will STILL start seeing adverts for that product after a while
in the ads on web pages.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Sunday October 26 2014, @12:48PM
If what you say is true, then it isn't end-to-end encryption and Google has been lying. Because for email, my computer is one end and your computer is the other end. Google's servers are no end at all. They are middle points. It goddam well better be encrypted when it sits there in an end-to-end encryption scheme, and if it is, NSA can go fuck itself if they want it decrypted. The only ones with the ability to do that would be you and me.
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Sunday October 26 2014, @07:46PM
Email is inherently store and forward. The only way you can ensure end to end encryption is to encrypt it yourself (pgp/gpg). And the only way you can insure nobody gets metadata is to make sure you run your own mail server and your correspondents runs their own mail servers.
Other than that, mail sits on disks somewhere, and unless your encrypted it, it sits there in clear text.
The NSA was able to tap cables running between Google data centers, They've never claimed to be able to penetrate Google's data-centers.
Refresh your understanding of the facts here:
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/googlers-say-f-you-to-nsa-company-encrypts-internal-network/ [arstechnica.com]
Your Storage in Google Drive can be encrypted if you want [blogspot.com]. But you can't expect unencrypted email to be stored at google in any meaningful encrypted state.
And you might want to refresh your understanding of how email works as well.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday October 30 2014, @01:36PM
I think the GP was talking about Google's PGP plugin:
http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2014/06/making-end-to-end-encryption-easier-to.html [blogspot.com]
It's not integrated into Gmail though, it's just a Chrome extension.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday October 26 2014, @08:54AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 26 2014, @12:58PM
"SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 5 submissions in the queue."
Otherwise, it will be more BS posts like this "story".
(Score: 2) by arslan on Monday October 27 2014, @01:37AM
... in 5 years will be the top meme in 5 years..
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday October 27 2014, @03:01AM
I'm sure one could spend a lot of time carefully analyzing and gutting this rant, but let's just say, even snail mail isn't dead yet. I'm willing to claim that ~50% (likely more) of all communication traffic today goes through email. Sure, most of it is spam, but that was true for snail mail too, and can you honestly say that most of the content you get on Twitter/Facebook/Reddit/etc has more value than spam?
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