Ray, I sent this to another list with some fairly senior Google folks... We'll see if there is any response.
I think it is arguable that email is now what might be classified as both a utility http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Public+Utilities and an "essential service" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_services and would, I believe under certain circumstances (war for example) be treated as such by governments. What that implies to me at least, is that there is the need for regulation to ensure a minimum level of service and service standards including in this instance a minimally acceptable and usable "help" function. M -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ray Harrell Sent: Monday, February 27, 2012 10:57 PM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] Mike Gursteinis presentlydealing with an email nightmare and so is offlinefor now Sorry that you are having to go through this but your thinking is clarifying things for me. I like the "regulating a utility." I wonder if the US will ever get around to doing that with Fedex? REH -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of michael gurstein Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2012 12:36 AM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] Mike Gurstein is presentlydealing with an email nightmare and so is offline for now I'm still not recovered... So sending this from a back-up account--notably a community network (as per Mike S.'s preferred model) that I at one time used as my primary account but which I gave up for the siren song of gmail :(. The Vancouver Community Network has been providing volunteer based, free email service for about 15 years or so and has done it reliably and with remarkably little downtime or system failure. Also, they are very responsive and just down the road (I've been on their Board off and on for years... (There is I think a significant message there as well... At one level my issues with gmail are consumer protection issues -- which however, since they seem to be transnational it is hard to see who/how I can invoke these (but I could be wrong... But at a deeper level I think it is not simply about protecting the consumer but regulating a utility... My guess is that if we asked virtually any population in the world the appropriate set of questions the result would be that they experience email not as a "consumer good" but rather as a necessary element of their day to day infrastructure as a citizen, consumer, business operator, parent etc.etc. And that any significant disruption would be experienced in more or less the same manner as a disruption in any other significant utility/infrastructure of modern life... It is I think, only a matter of time before this is widely recognized politically and some sort of regulatory environment established--it is probably only delayed because of the speed of evolution of the tech, the technological illiteracy of most politicians (among the last groups in the world to move into the email enabled world--according to studies in various countries), and the difficulty of transnational regulation and the absence of a framework through which such regulation could be introduced and managed. Those who reference PEBKAC (i.e. blaming the victim) (as is implicit in Mike S.'s comments)--this is ridiculous... I'm reasonably well-educated/informed/intelligent... I made best efforts as indicated in my blog post and I found myself in gmail hell (where I still reside BTW... I've been searching around in gmail "help" and found many other people--some who appear rather more technically literate than myself similarly lost somewhere in the antechamber of Kafka's Castle/trying to communicate with the Borg (HAL?).. and from various comments and my blog and particularly private emails many many other people have similar problems... when a problem because sufficiently common it moves from being the victims problem to being the originators' problem or at least it should... And as various other people have noted gmail is not a "free" (as in benevolent) service... getting people to gmail--which Google has and continues to aggressively attempt to do is part of their business model where they take the information which folks using their mail service gives them access to and they then sell that (at very considerable profit) to various folks with an interest. Best, Mike -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell Sent: Saturday, February 25, 2012 10:09 PM To: [email protected]; 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Futurework] Mike Gurstein is presently dealing with an email nightmare and so is offline for now Well said. A sober reflection on the way in which entrust valuable information to unseen business people. You are saying shop local. For food and computer support. Arthur -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mike Spencer Sent: Saturday, February 25, 2012 6:57 PM To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Subject: [Futurework] Re: Mike Gurstein is presently dealing with an email nightmare and so is offline for now GMail is, you know, cool and convenient and all like that. But if your career depends on reliable email (which is intrinsically unreliable), you should become an instant email control freak. + Your mail server -- the physical machine -- should be located within easy driving distance of your principal place of abode or business. + It should be operated and maintained by a human whom you have met face to face and whose name and reliable contact info you know, probably a small- or medium-sized business owner or a tech manager or system administrator for same. + That machine and that individual should be contracted to maintain frequent periodic backups of your email archive and provide you with timely access, direct or indirect, to those backups in a way that is not impossibly technical or time-consuming. If your career can be totally crashed by mail archive loss, those backups should also include off-site backup and possibly (depending on how tempting a target you are) encryption. + Direct personal support, at least 8/5 -- better 24/7 -- from your mail server admin or his technically competent employees or colleagues should be part of your contract. + You should have your own redundant periodic backups (what if your server establishment burns down?) on DVD, a second machine, a home server, a portable HD or other means. Off-site is desirable, that is, if your house burns down, your friend, relative or neighborhood techie has your box of DVDs in his attic or your backup HD in his desktop machine. + And yes, you should expect to pay for all this. This is your career, right? It's an essential business expense. Imagine a "free" ATM service run by ACME-Google. All you have to do is watch a 2-minute video each time you use it. Would you keep all your money in such a service? After all the talk on FW about the nature of the modern corporation in all its maleficent aspects, I can't imagine trusting my career, income, fiduciary (or other) responsibilities to the whim of a large^H^H^H^H^H giant corporation which has no binding contractual obligations to me. That said, Mike, I wish you all the best in getting things working again. - Mike -- Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~. /V\ [email protected] /( )\ http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
