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Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

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Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Oh yeah, far more easy than the government taking regulatory action is coordinating a massive consumer choice boycott. Sometimes, it is so abundantly clear to me that this site is full of former teenage libertarians who grew up and still haven't shed all of those ideals.

You are on a site called hacker news. “Former teenage libertarian” is practically in the name.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#642
post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, the clients are different - Microsoft and IBM target enterprise clients and they know that if a client can't reach someone on the phone, they will lose their business. Google on the other hand is a business-to-consumer business trying now to be a business-to-business one, and still thinks that it can ignore the "older" generation and target the current generation who are more familiar with interacting with automated response systems. It's already biting them in the arse.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their new slogan is hilarious. It's not even one slogan, it's three: * Respect the user * Respect the opportunity * Respect each other The first one is obviously a joke, because nothing says "respect the user" like canceling a beloved service with millions of users, or "updating" the product while losing half the features. The last one makes you wonder why they had to put it into a slogan. Isn't it the baseline expec…

> Respect the opportunity Honestly, this reads like a Rule of Acquisition. I think Google may be run by Ferengi at this point.

I would legit watch a Star Trek franchise that had the Ferengi running Big Tech.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#644

Earlier 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.

the difference here though is that physically you can at least own the address, but even your digital address isn't actually yours. Phone, email, ip and whatnot are all provided by someone else and can be taken away. Domains can be stolen, deprecated or simply restricted from your use.

> physically you can at least own the address

No, a town owns an address and rents it to you. If something goes wrong with the billing you get evicted, if they want a mall they forcibly "buy" it from you.

There's no resource you can count on in this way. Resources get reallocated at some point.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#645
post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah I have been pleasantly surprised with how good Amazon's customer support is. In contrast I've had a Google wifi and home device stop working on me, and it was nearly impossible to get in touch with a customer support rep from Google. At this point, I refuse to purchase Google device because I don't know what to do if I have a problem with it.

In the public sector in Europe we’ve long liked Microsoft because they actually sell support. When they decided to push 365 additions as enabled by default and no easy way to turn it off, we suddenly had a couple of thousand employees trying this new teams thing out. After a few hours on the phone with Seattle, it was possible to disable, and later Microsoft changed policy to let their enterprise customers decided what features are on. We have a lot of those stories, and it’s something people often overlook when they wonder why the public sector favours Microsoft. We have more than a quarter century of great relations.

When AWS first arrived they had the same automated support system that Google does, and they didn’t really want to comply with GDPR. We probably would’ve gone with Azure anyway because it’s the easy option for operations when you’re already in bed with 365, but the Amazon/Google attitude meant they weren’t even considered beyond the first look.

Since then AWS has overtaken Azure in GDPR compliance and the availability of their support, and we now have several supplier operated solutions in AWS.

Google is still on the “do not buy from this company” list.

But maybe they just aren’t interested. They are primarily an advertising company after all.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#646
I just want to know why is no one willing to hold Google and Apple accountable?

Why don't journalists from e.g TechCrunch or the Verge confront Sundar point blank and ask him how can stuff like this happen and why is the only solution to blow up on social media?

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#647

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…

> 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. 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…

Yeah, and it would seem that Amazon has recently destroyed one million worth of clothing from a business owner on (allegedly) spurious counterfeiting claims, and an inability to get into touch with support.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#648
post #477

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'm curious if Google were to provide a payed service for their web services, which includes human support, how many people would pay for that?

... Probably as many as currently pay for Youtube Premium and then come to HN and complain about ads on Youtube :)

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They do because they can, and because the damage still falls into the "acceptable losses" column. Yeah, until they piss off someone too big to not give up without a legal/public fight or they piss enough people to make a dent on their bottom line. I think Google right now is just coasting and the short term evolution is just reactive/siloed plans but no bigger picture of where they want to go (basically just "evolu…

Coasting at a rate of 20% Y/Y growth on $10^12. The big plans are cloud/youtube. Smaller plans are things like Nest, Pixel, Stadia, etc. Web ads will take care of itself indefinitely. There are always moonshots in flight but it's non-trivial to create a second trillion dollar business out of thin air.

GCP is in big trouble at the moment. Their issues are long standing and endemic, and not shared by their competitors.

They have absolutely been coasting, and the market is only getting more cutthroat.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#650
I also got locked out of my google account - not because of a violation (automated flag or otherwise) but because google decided my login location was too different. I know my password and have access to my recovery email but I am put into and endless login loop of ‘unable to verify’. I contacted support which had me fill out a form and that was maybe 6 months ago. I’ve moved on now but I’ll never use a google product seriously ever again.
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