Google Chrome Dear Sophie
Why Hacker News recommends it
Brought up ironically in threads about Google deleting inactive accounts and tightening storage policies, as a reminder that Google once encouraged this kind of long-term use.
What it is
Google's "Dear Sophie" Chrome ad, in which a father emails his daughter's life moments to her future self over the years. It portrays an email account as a lifelong keepsake.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2020 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Cites paulryanrogers · 2024-06 · on “Sending emails to my three-year-old”
Kind of ironic since I recall an early Gmail ad showed a father opening an account for his infant, then giving to the child as it got older. Correction: technically a Chrome ad, yet very heavy use of Gmail. Maybe the trick is to not open it in their exact name? (In the ad they use "dear{name}@gmail.com) [this video]
Critical runlevel1 · 2020-12 · on “An update to storage policies across your Google Account”
A policy change that sabotages an idea that Google itself gave many people just a few years ago. Google's "Dear Sophie" ad: [this video]
Critical cseleborg · 2021-09 · on “Britain's Age Appropriate Design Code has made inroads into big tech's dominance”
Ironically, this was exactly the theme of Google's "Dear Sophie" ad [1] a few years ago. [1] [this video]
Critical SebastianKra · 2023-05 · on “Google to delete inactive accounts starting December”
I feel like this ad from Google is relevant: [this video] 8 years of work for nothing. --- ("Dear Sophie" - about a Father using Gmail as a Diary to share with his Daughter someday)