31–40 of 258 posts
FWIW, Brett Slatkin at Google reached out via Google+ to try and help this guy. Looks like they made the connect: https://plus.google.com/u/0/116969159384245484847/posts/Z1UH...
I used to play World of Warcraft and I used a separate email address for all my WoW activities on web -- emailing, blogging, commenting on blogs, etc. One day I was about to leave a comment on a blog when I got a message saying Google disabled my account due to the fact that they "perceived a violation." There was a little form I could submit an appeal/explanation to, and they said they would review my account within…
Not sure how Dylan can say the below quote with absolute certainty...
On July 15 2011 you turned off my entire Google account. You had absolutely no reason to do this, despite
your automated message telling me your system "perceived a violation."Google has a support problem. I'm amazed after almost a decade of offering services like email and advertising, they still haven't done anything to develop a reasonable support system for customers to address issues like this. Maybe they have a few open lines with their top 1% of customers but the attitude that "it's free, you are a meaningless statistic in our giant revenue stream so too bad" for the rest of their c…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But, see, the trouble here is that these users aren't customers . They're product sold to advertisers. When I was spending a few million a year on AdWords, guess who had a direct line to Google, both via email and on the phone? I could talk to those guys whenever I wanted about campaigns, get advice on improving my keyword mix, budgeting strategies, any of that stuff. From this business' point of view, individuals ju…
"But, see, the trouble here is that these users aren't customers. They're product sold to advertisers." The whole product/customer thing is a boring bit of sophistry usually used to slander Google. Google's profitability secret is a very high revenue to employee ratio. When I bought a $600 Nexus One from Google and discovered a problem with fulfilment, the grand total of support Google supplied to me was an automated…
You begin with what seems like disagreement, then prove my point.
A $600 device to be exposed to Google's mobile ads? Here's an email.
A few million dollars a year in ad spend? Here's a whole department of new friends.
Solving problems with AdWords can be done algorithmically. And is – there are lots of little automated touches there, from ad approval to keyword suggestion. But smart humans can give more – resulting in better financial performance for Google.
Code can rarely resolve support issues. But that's all they bothered to do because end users are not a priority. For all the reasons I mentioned.
When it benefits them financially, Google offers support. Otherwise, they don't. You can chalk this up to whatever cultural or business case you'd like.
But the end result is that unless you're pouring money into their pockets, you, as an individual, don't matter to Google. That's not sophistry – that's established fact.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But, see, the trouble here is that these users aren't customers . They're product sold to advertisers. When I was spending a few million a year on AdWords, guess who had a direct line to Google, both via email and on the phone? I could talk to those guys whenever I wanted about campaigns, get advice on improving my keyword mix, budgeting strategies, any of that stuff. From this business' point of view, individuals ju…
The world would be a better place if if companies focused on "people", and not on "money". Of course that's unrealistic. But I don't care. I grew up believing in Star-Trek-style society. You know... "Social problems are gone; people are free to devote themselves to improving themselves; etc". I honestly believed that humanity would someday achieve this. I used to believe most people were inherently good, and that the…
At least then, the guy wouldn't be completely screwed, and it's the sort of solution that scales, given that they're not interested in creating expensive support infrastructure for free products.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But, see, the trouble here is that these users aren't customers . They're product sold to advertisers. When I was spending a few million a year on AdWords, guess who had a direct line to Google, both via email and on the phone? I could talk to those guys whenever I wanted about campaigns, get advice on improving my keyword mix, budgeting strategies, any of that stuff. From this business' point of view, individuals ju…
"But, see, the trouble here is that these users aren't customers. They're product sold to advertisers." The whole product/customer thing is a boring bit of sophistry usually used to slander Google. Google's profitability secret is a very high revenue to employee ratio. When I bought a $600 Nexus One from Google and discovered a problem with fulfilment, the grand total of support Google supplied to me was an automated…
Google is giving you a service for free because they are selling data about you for money.
In other words if you aren't paying for the product you are the product.
How does that have anything to do with sophistry?
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/12/creating-backup-for...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But, see, the trouble here is that these users aren't customers . They're product sold to advertisers. When I was spending a few million a year on AdWords, guess who had a direct line to Google, both via email and on the phone? I could talk to those guys whenever I wanted about campaigns, get advice on improving my keyword mix, budgeting strategies, any of that stuff. From this business' point of view, individuals ju…
The world would be a better place if if companies focused on "people", and not on "money". Of course that's unrealistic. But I don't care. I grew up believing in Star-Trek-style society. You know... "Social problems are gone; people are free to devote themselves to improving themselves; etc". I honestly believed that humanity would someday achieve this. I used to believe most people were inherently good, and that the…
Nah, people are too busy worshiping things like Google+ and the next social network, things which really solve nothing at all.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The world would be a better place if if companies focused on "people", and not on "money". Of course that's unrealistic. But I don't care. I grew up believing in Star-Trek-style society. You know... "Social problems are gone; people are free to devote themselves to improving themselves; etc". I honestly believed that humanity would someday achieve this. I used to believe most people were inherently good, and that the…
I sympathize with your idealistic sort of thinking but it is unreasonable. Corporations (which is what Google is) are responsible to shareholders. The purpose of a corporation by definition is to maximize the bottom line for the shareholder. It has nothing to do with being good to people. The only way that this guy's problem will get solved is if enough people catch wind of his situation that it affects the fairly po…
Obviously my thoughts are unreasonable. I wish the world were unreasonable. Because then people might empathize with each other to an unreasonable degree, resulting in far less grief and hate within our microscopic timeline of our universe.