Google One

https://one.google.com/

by amzans • 7 years ago

42 93 7 years ago

one.google.com

Another typically badly explained Google product.

You arrive at one.google.com and all it says is something about your storage. Is that what it's all about?

Here's what it says in the Google Description (you have to Google what one.google.com is to find out what it does - hilarious!).

"Get expanded cloud storage, access to help from Google experts, and more benefits — in one simple plan that you can share with your family."

So, from this it's storage + experts + some mysterious other benefits - and it's about sharing it with your family.

Why don't they at least say that on their front page?! The reason, cos Google don't employ any decent usability experts.

pbhjpbhj• 7 years ago

The reason, cos Google don't employ any decent usability experts. //

They must, surely?

It seems more likely to be the "one-button mouse effect" where leadership dictates something like "minimal interface" to be king and refuses to believe anyone could possible not understand their product?

maest2• 7 years ago

From what I can tell it's:

* extra storage (google drive + google photos + gmail).

* phone photos and contacts backed up (there's a Google One app)

* "access to experts"

* discount on google purchases in "Google Store" - so for Pixels and DayDreams? Does Stadia count?

* discount when booking hotels through google.

Super weird mix of features. The meat of the offering seems to be more storage.

sundayedition• 7 years ago

I didn't get a discount on my stadia preorder, purchased in July. Of course, it hasn't shipped yet either and the originals release/delivery date was supposed to be the 19th iirc.

pps• 7 years ago

Maybe that's problem with your local version, in Polish I see everything described, page is quite long. There's also FAQ.

neogodless2• 7 years ago

When I go to https://one.google.com/about (the default page) I see the tagline

Expanded storage, access to experts, and more – all in one shareable plan

I see that they offer some discounts in Google stores and for hotels. I see that you can share the storage (and cost) with your family.

So overall 100GB for $20/year. Not completely awful, though I know plenty of people that use more storage for that just for photos.

Still, I'm thinking whatever you found on web search added little or no information to what's on the page that's linked.

tbrock• 7 years ago

Love that the front page shows me how much storage some hypothetical user needs yet I’m logged into google (can see my icon at top) and it doesn’t show how much storage I need.

Complete design fail.

judge2020• 7 years ago

https://one.google.com/storage

maest2• 7 years ago

To be fair, I don't see a link to that from the front page.

Still, nice that they've implemented it.

tw04• 7 years ago

Let me guess: doesn't work with google apps accounts, because google really wants people to stop using them but isn't dumb enough to straight pull the plug quite yet.

mkozlows• 7 years ago

I mean, it doesn't, but this time it actually makes sense: If you want more storage as part of a GSuite account, you just buy it. There's no reason to buy a consumer-focused package for a business offering that has the same thing already available as part of its billing.

ValentineC• 7 years ago

google really wants people to stop using them but isn't dumb enough to straight pull the plug quite yet.

I have my Google life spread out across a couple of (grandfathered) Google Apps account, and don't use any @gmail.com accounts for Google services, so it would suck if they pulled the plug.

giarc• 7 years ago

Google One has been available for a while. I'm not sure why this link was submitted, and how it made it to the front page of HN?

semiotagonal• 7 years ago

I saw the headline, and my first reaction was "Google What?"

I'd never heard of this thing. Maybe it was news to the submitter as well.

WalterSobchak2• 7 years ago

Agreed. Here is the previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18678929

bob1029• 7 years ago

Statistically speaking, if this post was made 6-12 months in the future, the discussion here would likely be lamentations regarding yet another product Google decided to kill.

Consider this your warning.

torgoguys• 7 years ago

The price jump from 2TB to 10TB is weird. 5x storage for 10x price. The other storage/price increments give you a "quantity discount" (e.g., twice as much storage for a 50 percent price increase) but that one is the opposite. Any guesses as to why they chose to do that?

_gfrc• 7 years ago

If you need more than 2TB it's quite likely that you are using the product in a professional context. Thus, they are able to charge more. The smaller tiers are cheap to be attractive to end consumers.

panarky• 7 years ago

Because the 2TB is discounted 50% for Google One members.

joeblau• 7 years ago

Does this get rid of ads? I would pay for this if all of the Ads in Search, Gmail, YouTube, and every other Google product they pushed went away.

SlowRobotAhead2• 7 years ago

Not being snarky at all - how would component be different from current my Firefox + uBlock experience?

icebraining• 7 years ago

Some people find it unethical to do that, whereas paying to block ads is ok because it's an agreement with the provider.

As for practical reasons, one may want to watch YouTube outside of browsers, where using uBlock is impossible.

rkeene22• 7 years ago

I don't think Google One does, but that is a service you can pay for: https://contributor.google.com/v/marketing

lxgr4• 7 years ago

Oh, TIL! However, for me this site only shows a landing page and an empty slide menu behind a hamburger button. Is this launched yet?

rasz• 7 years ago

Not enough. I would pay only if they served me attention un-optimized results. No more 'Peterson DeStRoYs some random host somewhere' 'you wont believe number 4' videos in YT recommendations, no more AMP first, current news, trending, volume over quality search result prioritization, no more 'you searched X, didnt you mean Taylor Swift instead?'.

CraneWorm2• 7 years ago

Ad blockers get rid of ads.

lucasverra2• 7 years ago

it does not. I'm a one customer (for storage) and i see ads in official gmail cleints (web + ios)

aluminussoma• 7 years ago

I've heard, but can't confirm, that photos and videos stored on Google are used to train ML models at Google. So I'm surprised that Google would want to charge at all for this service if it's important.

Were any other company able to get you to store your photos and videos, I wonder if that could dent Google's ML capabilities a bit.

bastawhiz• 7 years ago

That sounds like a conspiracy theory. Training how? It's not like people are uploading tagged photos. And what value is that over Google Images (or other services)?

arghwhat2• 7 years ago

To use people's random images for training, they would have to be manually annotated by a human (e.g. facial boxes, eyes, nose, mouth, ears drawn in).

There are also diminishing returns from additional data if it does not bring vastly new scenarios to train against.

Access to raw data alone is rarely a problem, so I would personally doubt that Google would have much value in Google Photos for training.

_wp_• 7 years ago

To use people's random images for training, they would have to be manually annotated by a human (e.g. facial boxes, eyes, nose, mouth, ears drawn in).

That's not true. There is a large and growing body of research on semi-supervised, self-supervised, and unsupervised learning that can take advantage of these unlabelled images.

gravypod2• 7 years ago

As someone who pays for multiple Google services this is not something I'm interested in at all.

I would be very interested in something that gave me the paid features in all of their services: YouTube red (no ads + custom content no one likes), Google storage (one), Google Plus Music (or whatever they're replacing it with) for "infinite" music, YouTube TV, Stadia, and my Fi account.

If Google integrated these billing systems and made a cohesive feature set that was constantly expanding it would be a no brained to spend like +$50/month on this bundle (phone + backups + entertainment).

I'm assuming they don't do this because of fragmentation across product teams or anti monopoly stuff.

dmitriid3• 7 years ago

It’s also because Google Accounts is such a complicated mess by now that no one inside Google knows how it works: https://grumpy.website/post/0PU1U2r3v

crazygringo2• 7 years ago

That's all just UX complaints.

Behind the scenes, a Google account is a single unified Google account, as far as I know.

(In other words, individual products can be confusing, but I don't think the backend inherently prevents unified billing.)

lxgr4• 7 years ago

Actually, compared to all of my other gripes with Google services, I've always found their account management to be pretty coherent and easy to understand lately.

SSO on iOS across the browser and Google's native apps, and "sign in with Google" in 3rd party apps, works flawlessly for me.

The only thing I'm missing is a "sign me out" button (per device or even on all devices) that actually works.

crazygringo2• 7 years ago

Funny, I'm the exact opposite -- the only thing I'm interested in is storage, so I'm glad I don't have to pay for the rest.

But the products you list all serve mostly dramatically different markets. I would assume they don't offer a bundle because the venn diagram here would actually be quite small. I don't think the main reason is internal politics or anti monopoly.

lxgr4• 7 years ago

YouTube red already gives you access to everything music-related, last time I checked: It includes YouTube Music premium (which in turn apparently is the successor of Google Play Music).

The branding is pretty messed up there (as usual for Google), but the service itself is actually decent, and if I wasn't already on Spotify I would seriously consider switching. 2€/$ more for ad-free YouTube would definitely be worth it.

That actually outlines one problem I'd have with such an "everything Google" bundle: Very likely, I'd already be paying for one or more of the components of one of its competitors, and the deal would be much less attractive as a result.

gravypod2• 7 years ago

That would be the "hook". You may have 1 to 3 of the things already included but the remaining things would get you to say "well..m overall it's less money than having both."

It's like Apple products. I already have a chat app but if I have an iPhone iMessage is pretty amazing

okintheory2• 7 years ago

From looking at Google's privacy policy for this product, it seems to me that if I have a file called all-my-deepest-secrets-fears-and-desires.txt stored in Google's cloud, then nothing stops Google from sharing what they learn from this file as long as it is "non-personally identifiable information". That sounds like they can do whatever they want, as long as they don't attach my actual name to it.

mojuba• 7 years ago

The irony of "non-personally identifiable information" is that there is no such thing. Just show me your regular everyday travel destinations, i.e. mostly home -> work -> home and I will identify you. Not to mention card purchases (Google bank accounts to the rescue!) that contain more information than you know about yourself.

Or if you are a software engineer, show me enough of your source code with file names etc. (including your commercial work) and I might be able to match you against the full LinkedIn database for example, although I probbaly won't be able to automate this one. Etc. etc.

Nothing is ever completely anonymous unless you get to the level of elementary physical particles which as we know don't have an identity :)

okintheory2• 7 years ago

Completely agree. It's a smoke screen, but probably one that holds up in court - for now.

thih9• 7 years ago

Launched August 15, 2018; 14 months ago.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_One

Shouldn’t we add „[2018]” to the title?

WalterSobchak2• 7 years ago

Good idea. I would like to see this added as well.

tpetry• 7 years ago

So it‘s a possibility to really get support from Google? Or is it the same support like any non-paying user?

rad_gruchalski• 7 years ago

Does this give me a human support? Otherwise it's a bit meh.

bachmeier• 7 years ago

What happens if one of Google's bots decides to delete your account? Is that it for your family's picture collection?

linsomniac2• 7 years ago

That's something I also worry a bit about. They do have Google Takeout, and I recently used that to download the 120GB-ish worth of stuff I've got in there, and it worked very well. I guess I should set up a job to back that up to B2?

alfiedotwtf• 7 years ago

Every time I see a new product from Google, I think of Reader.

Edit: let's be honest with ourselves... you do too

flaxton• 7 years ago

About a month ago, a hacker guessed a weak password on one of my seldom-used Google accounts. They changed the password and the recovery email.

I attempted to get the account back, including telling them the old password, old recovery email, and the month and year I opened the account (like 10 years ago) but no, they said they “couldn’t” do it.

So I’m sunk. No recourse, no one to appeal to.

So why would I put my whole life into Google? When it can be taken away so quickly, and there is no appeal process?

On my main Google account I do have a recovery email (that I host) and 2FA. But I do not feel secure that the same thing couldn’t happen there too.

If it does, you are sunk.

I’m actually in the process of moving everything off of Google.

No thanks!

graeme2• 7 years ago

Companies really need some sort of rollback to prior recovery email option. I had this happen with an old skype account I hadn’t put 2fa on.

I was able to get back into the account, but since the attacker had added their email, any changes had to be confirmed via that new email address! I re-entered a few times but eventually just gave it up to them. Microsoft was no help.

vezycash• 7 years ago

Outlook now has a wait period of 30 days before some certain security changes can be made - e.g. account recovery options. I've never used it though.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-my/help/4057241/microsoft-a...

adrianmonk• 7 years ago

I don't see how you could do that without opening up another risk. Suppose your recovery email account is compromised. You don't want it as a recovery email anymore because then the attacker can use it as a foothold to get into this account. If you can roll back removal, then you can't protect against that.

The only way I can see around that is if there are conditions on rolling back. But then if you're going to require authorization to roll back, you need to authenticate that request, and the whole reason you're trying to do this is because you are trying to reestablish the ability to authorize.

pas2• 7 years ago

You could be the hacker who got hold of the old recovery email. :/

There's no safe way to do these recovery processes.

Weak/lost/compromised password means that, the account is gone.

Sure it'd be nice to have a fallback that ties recovery to visiting an office, where you establish some shared secrets, biomarkers, etc. But big companies are not into that because probably too few people pay for this. (As they also don't want to depend on a 3rd party for identity management.)

enraged_camel• 7 years ago

>Weak/lost/compromised password means that, the account is gone.

Not if you have 2FA enabled.

Not that SMS-based crap either. I'm talking about the _real_ stuff, such as TOTP.

klipt3• 7 years ago

There's no safe way to do these recovery processes.

Imagine if banks said the same thing. "Oh someone changed the password and email on your bank account, sorry you permanently lost access to all that money."

If you signed up with your real name, some combination of government id, proof of physical address etc should be enough for recovery. If it's good enough for banks, shouldn't it be good enough for email?

cryptozeus• 7 years ago

Well you are using free resources that is why. If you had paid account with them then they will of course help you get it back. Google one is different then getting free inbox.

raverbashing• 7 years ago

A seamless account recovery was absolutely not the experience some people I knew had with paid Google Apps or other paid Google products accounts.

(Not to mentioned the unexplained account locking)

So, no, it's not merely an issue of "just paying".

GuB-42• 7 years ago

That's a hard problem.

Think of it the opposite way. You just changed your recovery e-mail and password because your recovery e-mail was compromised, and you also used the same password. In other words, you secured your account. Maybe you setup 2FA and a bunch of other things... good.

Now take the place of the attacker. You look at the compromised inbox, see a confirmation email from Google. Nice, you now have an account login, the creation date, and a good password candidate. If you could simply call Google, give the info you already got by reading the compromised mail, and get access, no amount of securing done by the victim could work.

There are two contradicting goals here: keeping your data secure from hackers, and allow some mistakes to be made on your side without you getting screwed (using a weak password is a mistake). Google is constantly juggling between the two and sometimes, the outcome is not what you want it to be.

The solution is not to hold on your personal data too much. Google doesn't ask for it only so that they can target you with ads, even though it is a very important reason to them. It is also used to secure your account.

If you don't want to use Google, good, however, there is no perfect solution, especially if you are not flawless yourself. Keep data on your own machine? Do you have offsite backups? End-to-end encrypted, privacy focused services provide no form of password recovery whatsoever. And services that are a bit too loose may give anyone access with a bit of social engineering. Pick your poison.

guiseroom• 7 years ago

A couple of months ago I stumbled across Google One; I thought it was a replacement for Google Drive. I got a popup chat and talked with a Google Rep, asking for clarity. The fact that it wasn't easily understandable from the site wasn't a good sign. Once I learned it was just the latest new way to upgrade Google storage, something I did not need, I ended the chat and went about my business. A few days later I received an email from the Google Play store confirming my purchase of additonal storage through Google One, something I had not requested or purchased, although somehow just being on the One site triggered that purchase. I was really taken aback because I didn't even realize Google had my purchase information. I've never purchased anything from/through Google. I had to go back to the One site, open a chat and then spend the better part of an hour trying to get the charge reversed, which is something they don't usually do.

So basically what I'm trying to say is this: Do not click through to the Google One site.

edit: I should also add that I originally had 17 GB of Google Drive storage (15 GB all users get plus an extra 2 GB for doing some Google survey or something some years ago) but after the Google One storage grift was reversed, my storage went back down to 15 GB. I guess there was a 2 GB penalty.

kstenerud• 7 years ago

Ugh. No.

These past two decades have been about freeing us from vendor lock-in. The last thing I'd want is to go back to that!

goldcd2• 7 years ago

I upgraded a few months back, as I'd exceeded by drive limit and the upgrade to 2Tb storage dumped me into this new "Google One" thing.

I'm actually pretty happy with it, as I just entered into it as the next storage tier. First up, it gave me a "click here for a free google home", and you get a 10% credit back if you buy hardware from them. Not deal-makers, but nice bonus when I just came for the storage.

What I did find useful is that you can now share your storage with other people. I can just add my aged family members and relax a bit knowing they have actually got some running backup in place.

I would like it if it was combined with Youtube Premium/Red which I also pay for, even though I use Spotify over Google music.

Havoc• 7 years ago

Doesn't support own domain as best as I can tell, which makes it a non-starter for me.

Think I might just move to protonmail instead of gsuite

linsomniac2• 7 years ago

I've used the "One" "Family Plan" for a couple years, whatever it was before One. It's nice, but I do worry about the non-linear pricing. For 200GB at $3/mo, that's fine. Then for 2TB it drops per GB to $10/mo.

The next jump is 10TB for $100/mo (double the per/GB). But my storage consumption doesn't jump like that, I won't go from 2TB to 10TB (probably). Which makes 3TB feel like $33/GB/mo...

S3 is linear and drops. B2 is linear. Google Fi refunds me for actual usage below what I've paid for. Why is storage so weird?

Google One

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