Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > What do other people do? Or are we just going to end up with an Internet in > about 10 years where every single email box is either on Microsoft 365 or > Gmail and the NSA has a wonderful interface to use to hunt through whatever > they want without bothering with a warrant?
One of my clients switched from a classic local imaps mail server over to Gmail. The logic was the same as all of your reasoning. Even though I have reservations and I won't be using Gmail I didn't oppose them switching. It would be inefficient for me to work against the massive corporations of Google and MS. It is all just as you said. Once some technology goes to the masses it becomes a cost margin game. The cheapest product that can be offered will win regardless of quality. Which means that by most measures of quality it will suffer. But it will be impossible to avoid. Gmail and MS Outlook 365 have a different cost model. Users agree to be the product sold to advertisers. Margins like that mean that small IT companies cannot compete. It would stress me out to try. Instead I have turned my attention to other areas that I can provide benefit that is not addressed by the large corporations. People still have other needs that need system administration. Just not email. This had a side benefit later. As in many environments there were factions and arguments. At this place one faction liked Google and Gmail. But another faction liked Microsoft and Outlook. A power struggle broke about between the two factions. The splinter faction broke off and moved half of the email accounts over to Outlook. There were cries of foul and requests for features from all around. Infighting. I imagine the same thing happens in reverse in many places. If I had been the admin for their local email when the MS faction appeared I would have been in the middle of the battle. It would have been stressful. Since I wasn't I could honestly say that I wasn't involved and it was a battle between Google Gmail and MS Outlook 365. It was good not to be wearing a target around me. Instead by not being pinned between the gorillas I could concentrate on adding value in other places. The job mutates and is different but still continues. Bob
