Oh joy. Google disables spell check in gmail if you opt out of letting them use your email to feed their AI. It's pretty clear many of the features they disable don't require their AI to work, e.g. category tabs. They're just intentionally making the product worse for those who don't comply.
It's their product, they can do as they like. But violating the Wheaton rule eventually loses customers.
@allpoints
The solution is simple, stop using it entirely. Start using an e-mail service that does respect your privacy and that won't be going through all your data.
@alterelefant respectfully, that's not simple for most people. but I get your point.
@allpoints
Google mail was always free of charge. People using it and their data have been the product since the beginning. So in essence nothing has ever changed.
@allpoints You’re the pro here, my friend, but I stopped voluntarily using anything connected with Google years ago cuz that’s how they are. I’m ready to go back to radio and paper, but I’m an extremist I guess
@lawyersgunsnmoney yeah, I've de-googled as much as reasonable and I maintain my own mail server and domain for important things as well as paying for Proton. But it's what I do for a living.
My older relatives aren't going to cut ties with everyone they know just because Google is evil, Facebook is a cesspit, Twitter is a Nazi bar, etc.
Although the thought of pen, paper and a wax seal is becoming more and more appealing.
@allpoints I don’t cut ties with people, just their products and services. It’s *tremendously* easier for you to wall them off than for me as a civilian. I’ve read that the platform providers (Google, meta, Reddit, probably yahoo, and others) are selling their tracking data to Ka$h and other federal LE and so that puts me on high alert for misuse. Google is at the top of my list because they are unavoidable.
@lawyersgunsnmoney understood, and I support your approach.
By cutting ties, I meant folks losing touch with their communities by dropping a platform. e.g. If my mom's knitting group coordinates on Facebook, she'll lose touch with them if she doesn't maintain an account. Cory Doctorow describes it quite well in Enshittification.
For me, Gmail is the last one to go. I've had that account for ?decades? It will take a while to get everyone I know to use a different email address for me.
Apr 4, 2026, 4:45 AM@allpoints Yeah, this is malicious compliance. They take anything that could be categorized as machine learning and disable it, even the ones where the size of the output is much smaller than that of the input.