Your notes might be the most important asset owned by the advertising company
My note taking application is like my brain. And I dump pretty much everything in there. Google, which just killed one of my favorite services of Google Reader expects me to actually trust them with my dearest notes and most personal thoughts? So they could sell those to the highest bidder? Uhmm, I don’t think so… I’d rather pay with hard cash, thank you.
Would you like your memories exiled from the service you use?
Google Reader Fiasco showed how Google is following its own interest more than the interest of its users that made its billions in the first place. And now they are coming with the yet “next best app”, to collect more information about us! So you could sell it, hand it over to the government? I don’t think so.
No, I am not going to use Google Keep. And yes, I believe it’s not a leading service, but yet another failed Google copycat product without an ounce of innovation. And likely will be purged in some of the next Springs in the following years, if they figure out, that they can’t monetize your memories and tasks.
Unfortunately, there will be numerous people who will lock up all their search data, along with their memories into the Google sewers. This is just the extended version of “Why I am quitting Google, and why you should do it too”. And I am not ending this series, until confident that Alpha Efficiency readers are confident with the alternatives and can go Google-free if you choose to, or as much as Google free, as you want to.
By July 1st I’ll be almost Google Free
This is the date when Google set the death of Google Reader, the service that I was passionate about and loved immensely.
Perhaps I am a hypocrite, but in the end, I am doing what is in my best interest, and I don’t feel “guilty” one single bit if I still have to cling on to a service or two, where I am not giving away information to Google.
The remnants that I am tackling in the meanwhile…
There are still Google services that are the backbone of my online business, that I can’t break that easily. Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools will be slightly hard to break, but I am confident that I will be able to find decent paid alternatives. I will also be maintaining a profile on Google+, but that is far from the utilized social network.
Gmail has proven to be extremely resilient, as I haven’t found the suitable replacement SO FAR, and I am still waiting for experiences of other people with FastMail.fm and other mailing clients, before I pull the plug myself.
Final thoughts
Every time I replace some Google service that I am using, I feel a bit more free from the clutches of Corporate Internet Giants. It’s a liberating feeling, and going to get your services from the underground providers is making you feel like you are supporting the right thing.
For example, DuckDuckGo is running by one person, that is a family man. Each time I would click on the DuckDuckGo ads that show up in the search, his kids would get a portion of their meal. Doesn’t it make you feel better about yourself than generating dollars for shareholders?
