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It's not acceptable that Google does not offer support to users

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: It's not acceptable that Google does not offer support to users

#51

Post by 0des »

293984j29384 wrote: post #49
rg111 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which one would you recommend?

For e-mail, I can't recommend migadu.com enough. Great plans, very reasonable prices. The interface is a little clunky but you get used to it.

migadu is amazing, however be warned, even if you pay they dont want you using their service for things like automated emails for your SaaS past the bootstrap phase. They are actual people behind the support email, with fantastic response time and very human qualities. it's hard to explain but they want your business and it shows with every tough.

Re: It's not acceptable that Google does not offer support to users

#52

Post by 0des »

searchableguy wrote: post #44

Google does offer support if you are a paid Google one or workspace user. https://one.google.com/about/support https://nira.com/g-suite-support/

cant generate a support pin if youve been locked out of logging in, which is often the problem.

Re: It's not acceptable that Google does not offer support to users

#53

Post by aeternum »

cs137 wrote: post #48
aeternum wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>we need to regulate the shit out of search engines and employers in order to protect people from unearned reputation damage. No we don't, in fact not fixing this provides plausible deniability which in many cases is more valuable.

Plausible deniability for whom? Employers? Which side are you on? If we don't regulate employers and the decisions they make, people will continue being denied jobs for stupid reasons. In the ongoing war against fascism, moderation is no virtue and extremity is no vice.

If being denied jobs is the main concern it's much more effective to change your legal name to one that is slightly more common vs. try to scrub the internet of information.

If you somehow succeed in regulating google, I as an employer will simply search for your name using Baidu, Yandex, or Naver. Good luck getting all of them to play along with your particular censorship ask.

Re: It's not acceptable that Google does not offer support to users

#55

Post by zhte415 »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #26
toastal wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it have to be in one place? There are dozens of cheap and fairly private email providers and you can run spreadsheets locally or self-host an Etherpad.

If you need to ask this you’re not understanding the business need Google is providing me.

A business that is critically dependent on IT having no expertise in basic critical things like hosting email somewhere is akin to a gardener choosing to water their plants with Brawndo because it's got electrolytes.

Re: It's not acceptable that Google does not offer support to users

#56

Post by cardosof »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #40
logicalmonster wrote: post #24

1) There have been Googlers who have posted on HN about their customer service, and the ones that have posted seem to think their algorithms are good enough and don't really make the connection that every false positive is a real human or business that might lose a business or worse when they can't access their data. My interpretation of this is that either they're fine with being evil, or Google's average employees…

>Google's average employees aren't quite as smart as public perception portrays. Intelligence is a funny thing. People can be the world’s foremost expert in whatever the heck, don’t matter for my point, and be utterly incompetent in every other area of their life if someone else is picking up for them. Think of career scientists giving humiliating public speeches for the first time since high school (industry confere…

>Providing support should be required by law. If you run a service that people depend on for any of the requirements of modern life then you should provide real live human support 24/7/365 or be liable for treble damages and equal fines for all harm this corner cutting costs.

Yes, exactly this! Unfortunately many people will see this as socialism and reject this kind of regulation.

Re: It's not acceptable that Google does not offer support to users

#58

Post by 2143 »

logicalmonster wrote: post #24

1) There have been Googlers who have posted on HN about their customer service, and the ones that have posted seem to think their algorithms are good enough and don't really make the connection that every false positive is a real human or business that might lose a business or worse when they can't access their data. My interpretation of this is that either they're fine with being evil, or Google's average employees…

> 3) The solution for Google is really easy though: charge some fee for human support that keeps customer service requests to a manageable level. When it's a genuine issue, people will pay some fee to get an actual trained person to pay attention to and hopefully resolve.

Warning: totally hypothetical controversial opinion follows (I'm playing the devil here):

From a game theoretical perspective, if you had to pay for support what prevents Google from intentionally blocking the accounts of random people so that they'll have to pay to contact support, who will then unblock the user?

Re: It's not acceptable that Google does not offer support to users

#59

Post by raxxorraxor »

It is dangerous to rely on accounts from big tech companies. My Microsoft account was banned 20 Minutes after I created it. I posted a technical question in their forums and no, I was not an enraged cookie with foul language complaining about computers and the world. Don't remember the topic, but it was a niche problem. Something about user configured IP blocks to their cloud infrastructure.

I suspect it was because I refused to give out my phone number. For a account reactivation I would have needed to give them my number too although I don't understand how that would help. Then I wanted to delete my account but that wasn't possible without loggin in as was contacting support.

I hate that my corporate account leaks information too for that matter but I don't want to share data on principle. They just don't need it.

Never rely on large corps for work or professional communication infrastructure.

Re: It's not acceptable that Google does not offer support to users

#60

Post by raxxorraxor »

gumby wrote: post #30
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you list a couple? I’m interested in moving my email, document storage, and document manipulation (word and sheet stuff) to one nice solution somewhere else.

For example microsoft will give you mail and shared docs, for example. Use your own domain. I’ve used it, it’s ok, certainly no worse than google and you get a much better text editor, spreadsheet, and actual Powerpoint if you need that. I think you can get sso across github, linkedin, teams instead of zoom, etc too, though I haven’t tried. If you use Apple you can use icloud/iwork which has shared editing, etc, but…

Microsoft randomly and quickly suspends accounts as well.

Nextcloud from a smaller hosting provider is probably the best solution.

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