I mean the account lock-out was probably an honest mistake.

The lack of support, however, is not - and is part of Google’s business model.

Hmm, Isn't this moving the overton window? Should we accept that they were viewing his data in the first place?

So much this. Host locally, and push encrypted backups to a cloud service.

Doing this will screw Google’s ability to optimize storage for identical files, which may drive up costs, but it’s the best way to ensure your data stays private.

Do you have this automated?

>"So much this. Host locally, and push encrypted backups to a cloud service."

Host locally and RENT backup servers in couple of places. Those cost peanuts and are highly reliable.

@skosie >Host locally, and push encrypted backups to a cloud service.

Is there any "grandparent friendly" way to do this today?

Give them a NAS / old PC with shared network folder (Windows context menu or Samba on Linux), replicate the parts they want on phones etc. with Syncthing, and use any encrypted backup tool of your choice for the cloud backup.

Often people put quotes (or even air-quotes) around things to imply it's sarcasm or that it's only that thing if you can suspend disbelief, so I don't think there's any disagreement there.

Additionally, making them accountable for these mistakes is a way to actually have them resolve them, so honest or not, it's likely to stop of decrease in occurrence then.