Interoperability Is The Feature

Darren Cohen on moving back to Gmail:

Going back to Gmail wasn't about giving up my principles; it was about accepting that interoperability is itself a feature, and right now, Gmail is where most of the tools I care about live.

I'm currently using an Android phone as my daily driver. Not testing it. Not trying it out. Using it properly. Which means Gmail, Google Calendar, and Gemini instead of Siri.

This matters because I've spent years writing about privacy. About not giving all your data to one company. About owning your content and controlling your digital life. Now I'm handing Google everything. Every search query. Every calendar appointment. Every voice command to Gemini. They're getting a complete picture of my daily life.

Why? Because Gemini actually works.

I ask it something and it answers. No "here's what I found on the web" redirect. No thirty-second wait while it punts to ChatGPT. No wrong answers. It just does the thing I asked it to do. The way Siri was supposed to work in 2011 and still doesn't.

This is what Darren means about interoperability being the feature. When your calendar, email, and voice assistant all talk to each other properly, that's not a bonus. That's the product. Gmail works because everything else assumes you're using it. Android works better when you use Google services. Fight against that and you spend your life making things sync instead of actually using them.

I do believed in keeping my data private. Those principles haven't disappeared, but I got tired of Siri being useless. Tired of nothing working together properly. Tired of spending time fixing my tech stack instead of just getting things done.

So I made a choice. Privacy for functionality. Ideals for tools that work. Data for an assistant that assists. That's the trade. Some people make it without thinking. I made it knowing exactly what I was giving up.