501–510 of 1001 posts
but used a gmail account instead of pro email account (that's not a good move on his part here).
and then he still can't get help from Stadia ?
Possible but very hard to believe.
Google uses non-human automation to make some decisions, including banning accounts. As others have mentioned, this is not unreasonable as long as there is a reasonable (in terms of time and effort) path to disputing a ban - i.e., speaking to a human about the issue. But Google (and Facebook, and probably some other companies) don't have reasonable processes for disputing or resolving these situations. Some have said…
I'd bet Amazon has more retail customers trying to get disputes resolved, than Google has business customers attempting to do the same, yet Amazon manages to get a human on the other end of the line. And I'd bet that Amazon's disputes have far less monetary value per incident. Maybe apples to oranges, but it's impressive from a customer service perspective.
The focus on customer service and customer care is what sets Amazon apart from Google. Amazon will bend over backwards to ensure that the customer is taken care of and will even eat some costs or make concessions to make sure that the customer experience is top-notch. By comparison, Google's customer service is absent. Google has plenty of money that they could spend to hire customer support teams and boost the custo…
I think this narrative is false. Amazon will certainly refund money or eat costs but they have seemingly done little to stop scams, review bribes, or counterfeit products. Their UX is also increasingly user hostile (try cancelling Prime).
I would put them on par with WalMart, which also has a very liberal return policy.
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There needs to be a raft of community managers @ Google handling these sort of failures, including some senior ones to deal with escalations of this kind. They need this to counter the phalanx of people who enjoy spending their time trashing google. Just check reddit's ProjectFi or Stadia subgroups to see people who've made it their life's work to downvote every thread and response in those forums and spew vitriol at…
I am not trying to write a post for ABoringDystopia, but I would wager that the vast majority of folks with banned accounts that actually want them back would just pay, either for the review or just to get unblocked. Question, does take-out still work with a banned account?
No clue, my friend; I am not a Google employee.
This makes me anxious about my long time Gmail address. Back then I got it just because it and Google was cool, and their services had a good reputation. It was a different Google back then. If they had launched it this year I would never have got one because chances are it would have been cancelled by 2025. Gmail is really the only valuable thing that actually ties my life to Google. And it's not that hard to replac…
What's the best way to back up your data? Google Takeout? Is that easily ingestible into other email programs?
This makes me anxious about my long time Gmail address. Back then I got it just because it and Google was cool, and their services had a good reputation. It was a different Google back then. If they had launched it this year I would never have got one because chances are it would have been cancelled by 2025. Gmail is really the only valuable thing that actually ties my life to Google. And it's not that hard to replac…
I started switching to ProtonMail for this exact reason. It’s not that I’m doing anything that would draw a purposeful or legitimate ban, but they’re so damn capricious that I fear getting my account locked because of a bug and not being able to undo it.
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> It's painfully clear at this point that we need a consumer "bill of rights" to protect us from these giant tech companies I get where you're going, but I think far more costly to them and advantageous for us is to simply show them that they are unnecessary. If we can drop them so easily, they can't pull stuff like this anymore. It is possible to drop Google and Facebook. They do this stuff because people _need_ the…
> It is possible to drop Google and Facebook. Its also possible to live without electricity and running water. This disproportionate power model doesn't work there because some people implemented regulations on them. I am beginning to suspect we need similar laws for this.
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I'd bet Amazon has more retail customers trying to get disputes resolved, than Google has business customers attempting to do the same, yet Amazon manages to get a human on the other end of the line. And I'd bet that Amazon's disputes have far less monetary value per incident. Maybe apples to oranges, but it's impressive from a customer service perspective.
Microsoft and IBM are also companies with a lot more humans available. I have solved lots of things with phonecalls be business or as a customer. You need to be really big to get humans on Google side.
You’d think that there’d be a “this person is high profile and any automated bans will cause a stink” flag on accounts to require human review on such decisions, but apparently one of the richer companies in the world just can’t be bothered to hire a few extra people to avoid a PR problem. That or they’re convinced that they’re this close to fixing the automated system, which they obviously are not.
> You’d think that there’d be a “this person is high profile and any automated bans will cause a stink” flag on accounts What does high profile mean? I've heard of Leon Spinks, the boxer, but I've never heard of Andrew Spinks in my life until today. People with 5 digit Twitter follower counts are actually a dime a dozen. Even people who were obscure can become "high profile" for a day. That's how going viral works.
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Gamers don't care about the tech that's being used, they only care about playing good games. If you're a Stadia user, why wouldn't you want to play Terraria? Because it's not a good use of streaming? But it's an awesome game!
Don't get me wrong, I see the appeal for Google of having it on there, but from the sidelines here, it seems to me to be terribly wasteful. It's like the energy consumption angle was never even considered. I presume it wasn't. OT - where does your username come from? I'm sure it's not, but for a Brit to read it, it stirs thoughts of a terribly un-PC origin! :)
It wasn't until a few years ago that I stumbled upon an Urban Dictionary entry for it. That was so disappointing because I always thought I was so creative coming up with that unique and interesting-sounding name...like Tolkien!
I'm definitely not important enough for anyone to bother cancelling me over it (especially considering how mild and obscure it is), but I've stopped using it just in case. I still have a lot of old accounts lingering around that use it though.