Google should have fixed this years ago.
Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked
571–580 of 1001 posts
Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked
#572It's painfully clear at this point that we need a consumer "bill of rights" to protect us from these giant tech companies. At the very least, companies must be legally required to present you in writing with the so-called violation of terms they're accusing you of, evidence of the violation, and a phone # or other immediate contact so that you can dispute the accusations. It's insane that these basic legal rights don…
> It's painfully clear at this point that we need a consumer "bill of rights" to protect us from these giant tech companies. Nope. That gives players like Google a platform to negotiate from now and in the future, and it won't curb abuses long term. These abuses are a symptom of economic concentration and a lack of competitive markets. The only resolution guaranteed to work is to break up these companies down to smal…
> The only resolution guaranteed to work is to break up these companies down to smaller parts until they no longer act like quasi-governments.
Why not both?
A consumer bill of rights and breaking up Google are not mutually exclusive. Consumer protection laws protect consumers from all companies big and small, present and future. Breaking up Google won't do anything about the "next Google".
It's a bit strange to think that antitrust is a long-term solution when the successful antitrust case against Microsoft didn't prevent Google, Facebook, and Apple from arising.
Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked
#573Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
And it absolutely bites them in the ass. Google's awful reputation at the enterprise level is probably why GCP is struggling to make it among that sector.
They are becoming the AT&T Wireless of Cloud providers.
If you have no problems, it's fine. The first time you need to call customer support, you start wondering if TMobile or somebody else would be a better provider.
Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked
#574It's painfully clear at this point that we need a consumer "bill of rights" to protect us from these giant tech companies. At the very least, companies must be legally required to present you in writing with the so-called violation of terms they're accusing you of, evidence of the violation, and a phone # or other immediate contact so that you can dispute the accusations. It's insane that these basic legal rights don…
Its not fair when you have to get attention on twitter before getting issues like this resolved. Some of us don't use twitter for one thing
Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked
#575Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know it’s funny that lots of the basic functions of business with consumers (eg, ability to return items) were set and codified in the US as the Uniform Commercial Code [0] that was established in 1952. Before then it was wild and variable. What’s really interesting is that it seems like of hacker-like in how it was implemented. It was published as a guide and then states passed laws to implement. Reminds me of a…
The problem with this sort of thing is that because it's interstate commerce, states usually do not have standing to regulate effectively. The Federal government struggles to implement new regulatory authority because of political challenges. Various groups of stakeholders will declare any such regulation an infringement on free speech (ie. "The constitution gives me the right to sell fake penis pills to fund my radi…
> Various groups of stakeholders will declare any such regulation an infringement on free speech (ie. "The constitution gives me the right to sell fake penis pills to fund my radical political agenda!")
This is just an awful example. There is not a free speech right to pay for your own speech by committing crimes, and nobody claims or would claim that there is. Similarly, you don't see the argument made that vendors enjoy the constitutional right to sell fake pills. What spammers want to do, and what anti-spammers want to stop them from doing, is to advertise real pills, and yes, there are extensive free speech implications there.
Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked
#576Google 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.
Amazon has tremendous numbers of contractors and employees who handle customer issues, seller issues, and partner issues.
Google, on the other hand, pretends to be a good provider of lots of software services, but if anything ever goes wrong with any of them, you are screwed, including if it's a premium service that you pay for. This is why you should never allow Google to control anything that is important to a business of yours or to your personal life.
Google has tons of sales reps on the ad side who will be happy to give you a rationale on why you should spend money more aggressively on their platform, but even they will sometimes be useless at fixing problems unless you are a truly massive customer for them. If you ever need to talk to a sales rep, you can get a Google ad person on the phone in minutes, but they will tell you to bid more aggressively and to buy more display ads.
If your problem with Google is that you aren't spending enough money on display ads, they're Johnny on the spot; they've got 9 trillion hammers that they want to sell you for that particular nail. Need help with anything else substantial related to a Google service? We have a robot you can e-mail for that, and that robot will ignore you.
Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked
#577Google 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'm actually surprised there isn't more legal action taken. Not this specific case, but in advertising there's quite some damage for automated bans with unreasonable time to resolve the issue. In a setting where advertisers are effectively forced to use Google to avoid giving market share to competitors, there's the element of not having a choice while ending up with a significant disadvantage once these mechanisms f…
> there's the element of not having a choice while ending up with a significant disadvantage once these mechanisms falsely trigger.
Some people would call that racketeering.
Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked
#578Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, in practice you always have to rely on someone. Even before the internet you'd have to rely on the USPS to carry your letters. Unless you are physically speaking to someone in person, then there is always a middleman.
Well you can always just create your own courier. If you want true free speech these days you need to build your own stack from the ground up anyway.
Oh? Is the government interfering in your ability to say what you would like to say in an online space?
Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked
#579Does anyone not working for Google have an opinion which isn't a variant on "Serves Google right"?
I assume that many Googlies also have that opinion, and a few others are sure that this can be fixed, because they don't recognize that this is a systemic cultural problem. There's only been one Abcedarian unit that ever understood customer service, and they (Google Fi) dropped it on the floor and beat it to death within 3 years.
Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked
#580Monopoly abusing monopoly.