On hate against Google Docs
June 02, 2014
tl;dr: I hate Google Docs, because:
- It’s Google
- It’s Docs
- It doesn’t work
I harbour a deep dislike against using many Google products, with Google Docs being significantly in the lead. Here’s a short post explaining why is that.
You shouldn’t trust Google with your data. As you’re (probably) not a paying customer, you should remember that you’re the product. So, Google doesn’t really care about you, they care about the money they earn using you. And it’s fine, as long as you keep that in mind.
You shouldn’t trust Google infrastructure. As a US company they have to follow the US law, which means that if you’re (like me) not a US citizen, you have no right to privacy and your data is available to any government agency that wants it. Probably, if you’re a US citizen, your data’s available to them anyway, through some illegal channels.
You shouldn’t require me to create/switch to yet another Google account just to read what you wrote. I’ve got two-factor authentication and multiple phone numbers (don’t get me started on that…), so I don’t really want to log in and out all the time.
You shouldn’t be using an office-like software suite unless you’re running an office. I’m a programmer, I work with txt files, not text documents. If I want formatting, I use markdown. I can grep through my data easily and manipulate it with scripts. I don’t want to be stuck with your font type and color choices. That’s why I configured my editor the way I want to read text.
You shouldn’t use a spreadsheet software just because you want to present your content in a table. Spreadsheets are for calculations not for aligning text.
You shouldn’t force me to use a service that doesn’t work half of the time. I don’t know whether it’s in conflict with my anti-tracking plugins or just incompatible with my browser, but I just don’t care. I don’t feel like debugging yet another endless URL redirection.
Also, if you force me to use it, I’ll associate all the bad feelings I hold for this crappy product with your person. Subliminally, of course.
Written by Wojciech Ogrodowczyk who takes photos, climbs mountains, and runs Brains & Beards to help companies deliver better mobile applications faster.