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Google just shut down our $1M business

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Google just shut down our $1M business

#61

Post by logicalmonster »

noitpmeder wrote: post #55
nr2x wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, with 190k headcount most of these people aren’t exactly head of the class.

You're kidding right? Google's average employee is almost assuredly more capable than top performers in almost any other company. They probably have more actual "head of the class" people than any other company on the planet.

Googlers are more capable than other top performers? Well, yes, but that comes with some gigantic caveats.

The main thing Google has been consistently great at is designing algorithms and systems to process large amounts of data efficiently. You can't take that away from them, of course.

But that's one of the smallest parts about building beautiful software.

When it comes to other important things: understanding how to build products that are loved(particularly in the social space), or understanding the human element, they've been woefully inadequate on a comical level.

Re: Google just shut down our $1M business

#62

Post by is_true »

noitpmeder wrote: post #55
nr2x wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, with 190k headcount most of these people aren’t exactly head of the class.

You're kidding right? Google's average employee is almost assuredly more capable than top performers in almost any other company. They probably have more actual "head of the class" people than any other company on the planet.

That's till they learn the Google way, which seems to be: never contradict the algorithms

Re: Google just shut down our $1M business

#63

Post by is_true »

Buttons840 wrote: post #13
ezekg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is Google we're talking about, where you can only talk to robots.

They're big enough to owe society better customer support than robots. Bust 'em up (antitrust), this ain't what a healthy market looks like.

I've talked several times to support after probably 30 clicks to get to a human and they are afraid of the rules. Google's support people doesn't provide support only can give you all their empathy for your situation

Re: Google just shut down our $1M business

#64

Post by himinlomax »

afandian wrote: post #23
logicalmonster wrote: post #14

OP seems like he'll hopefully be fine, but there's probably been many people like this who aren't fine. I'm sure many people lose their jobs when an advertiser is banned for some dumb and false reason. I'm sure some people fall into depression and commit suicide when their life's work is destroyed. Can't the allegedly smartest company on Earth figure out some solution to help people in these extreme cases? Especially…

> Can't the allegedly smartest company on Earth figure out some solution to help people in these extreme cases? I was in a different but comparable situation with Google. I closed my paid account, they claimed I owe them money, and the only way of replying is to log in with said non-existent account. It's a trivially foreseeable situation, and trivially detected. I bet it's quite common too. If a reasonably intellige…

> I closed my paid account, they claimed I owe them money, and the only way of replying is to log in with said non-existent account.

What about sending them a physical, certified letter? Have your lawyer write it.

Re: Google just shut down our $1M business

#65

Post by carlosjobim »

lenkite wrote: post #58
carlosjobim wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is hindering someone else from competing with Google on search? Google is awful when it comes to things such as censorship and free speech, but it is a boon to business competition, compared to how things where before.

"What is hindering someone else from competing with Google on search? " Mergers and Acquisitions https://qz.com/1920334/the-acquisitions-that-built-googles-m...

That's not hindering anybody. It especially is not hindering their competitors Apple, Facebook and Microsoft from competing. Google Search has grown into its size and popularity due to its own merits, and can as easily be replaced.

From the lawyers in that case: “There are no reasonable substitutes for general search services, and a general search service monopolist would be able to maintain quality below the level that would prevail in a competitive market”

I've been using a much better search engine than Google for months now. The free market of the internet and human ingenuity has delivered.

Re: Google just shut down our $1M business

#66

Post by carlosjobim »

noctis wrote: post #52
carlosjobim wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google has done nothing particularly special to create opportunities for very small businesses online I couldn't disagree more with you. For anybody selling online, Google brings most if not all paying customers and other search engines bring so few as to be irrelevant. If Google isn't bringing anything to the table, how come they are so dominant and raking in so much money? Why couldn't Yahoo compete? And don't sa…

Because they kinda caught the opportunity? If Google didn't, someone else would. > If Google isn't bringing anything to the table, how come they are so dominant and raking in so much money? Why couldn't Yahoo compete? > But Google has been one of the biggest blessings ever for small businesses and individual founders trying to make a living. Please note that competition in search market is different from providing sm…

> If Google didn't, someone else would. And where are they? The opportunity is always there and always has been for any tech company willing to rise to the challenge.

> Please note that competition in search market is different from providing small businesses with advertising opportunities.

Search and advertising has the same function: Reaching out to your public. If we look at the humane side instead of the business side, Google helps individuals with a message get a voice and reach out to the world in a way that would be impossible before. Only social media can compete in this, but they are much more heavily censored and suffer much worse discoverability.

I mean, your argument could be applied to any business or anybody who does anything. But the ground truth is that Google did it and kept doing it right for many years. Another dominant actor might have decided to do things other ways, such as maybe letting local business boards decide who gets to appear in online search.

Re: Google just shut down our $1M business

#67

Post by carlosjobim »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #60
carlosjobim wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's hindering someone else? I'm not talking about ads only, but also search. Google brings customers without the business having to pay anything to anybody or suck up to industry cartels.

There's a meme that ads must be based on covert tracking, and google analytics being everywhere is the most powerful covert tracker, also built into Chrome.

I think ads using tracking are close to worthless and that the whole Analytics/ad industry is just busywork that makes people think they're doing something important. Especially Facebook are good at luring small businesses in and convincing them to "keep trying" with different demographics and parameters to spend more in ads.

I never understood why more businesses don't use discount codes to know where their marketing is having an effect. That's ground truth.

Re: Google just shut down our $1M business

#70

Post by afandian »

himinlomax wrote: post #64
afandian wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can't the allegedly smartest company on Earth figure out some solution to help people in these extreme cases? I was in a different but comparable situation with Google. I closed my paid account, they claimed I owe them money, and the only way of replying is to log in with said non-existent account. It's a trivially foreseeable situation, and trivially detected. I bet it's quite common too. If a reasonably intellige…

> I closed my paid account, they claimed I owe them money, and the only way of replying is to log in with said non-existent account. What about sending them a physical, certified letter? Have your lawyer write it.

Their only legal address is in the US. I'm in the UK, and stopped short of looking for a solicitor who would be able to handle this. I'm still considering filing a complaint with the UK Telecoms regulator 'Ofcom'.

The punchline is that the American collections agency they use actually do respond to email and (I believe) dealt with it. But for it to go as far as a collections agency was nuts.

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