"They don't just ban people and walk away unless you plain didn't read the TOS and are breaking big rules like clicking your own ads, doing shady stuff, etc."
Simply not true. I was banned from adsense for "manipulating ads" or some such thing. I of course had never done this, and had actually put a LOT of effort into making sure that there was no way I could be flagged for click fraud. I actively told any family or friends that knew about my project to NEVER click on an ad on my site. It just wasn't worth the risk of getting banned from adsense, since most other networks pay significantly less for significantly more headaches. I had a high traffic site that was bringing in a lot of money without any need to cheat (so why risk everything for a few bucks?).
Well I ended up getting banned regardless for who knows why, maybe someone had it out for me and committed click fraud on the site through a bunch of proxy servers, I have no idea. Google refused to give me any information whatsoever. They did allow me to "appeal" to them, but it was clear in their automated response that no human read my appeal.
Anyways, I'll never trust Google again for anything business critical. By which I mean any project that relies heavily on Google in some way is very high risk. If something goes wrong (ie they shut down a service you rely on etc) they won't care to work with you in the slightest (unless you already have SV connections like rap genius).
On a side note, I did have a Google sales team reach out and contact me about a year later asking if I wanted to get involved in some new ad product they were working on. It was quite a slap in the face when I had to tell them that I was actually banned from adsense. Of course they responded by telling me there was nothing they could do to help overturn my ban. I guess even people who work at Google can't get actual feedback from Google.