Google banned me from Google Voice

In 1999, you could freely choose not to have a cellphone, because payphones were abundant. As cellphones became more popular, payphones disappeared; meanwhile, other services such as banks began to require you to have a number that could receive SMS messages. As smartphones reached mass adoption, it became a safe assumption that most people could access an android or iphone app, and support for other paths (such as a web browser) began to decrease, even for essential services.

I can freely choose to watch videos on YouTube or not, and freely refuse to do so if I don't like it. But I also realize that by YouTube merely existing and being popular, it creates a gravity well. Creators stay on YouTube because their audiences are there, and viewers stay there because the channels they follow are there. By merely existing, the oxygen available to other potential services that I could freely choose is reduced.

I can choose not to drive a car, but the choice of many other people to drive cars results in roads, services, and cities designed to meet their needs, rather than mine. This reduces my freedom to opt out of car ownership. And if McDonalds didn't offer a car-only 24-hour drive-thru, there would be unmet demand by hungry people late at night that might provide enough business for another company to open a 24-hour cafe. As it is, McDonalds services enough of that demand, and if the non-drivers have no midnight food options, it's their fault for being too small of a market to be worthwhile.

The dynamics of these gravity wells is important to acknowledge, and I think it does create a responsibility on the operators of these services to their customers beyond that of someone freely using their service by uncompelled choice. Because they are, to some degree compelled, and the compulsion comes from the existence of that service removing oxygen from the competitors that would have otherwise appeared to meet those needs. The model of "I'm voluntarily offering you a service that you otherwise wouldn't have had; it's my right to simply choose to stop offering it to you" is too simple.

(Edit: But practically speaking, I do think what you say is good advice and I don't disagree with it. I'm only objecting to the moral philosophy behind it. Kind of like I agree that pedestrians should wear bright clothing and reflective stripes to avoid getting hit by cars at night, even though it's the drivers' moral responsibility to not hit those pedestrians).

> My only worry has been that it seems like another product that Google could easily decide to kill off and send to the Google graveyard at any moment.

I feel the same way about Blogger, and I even had a page on Blogger that was banned after I signed in on their Android app. This was around 2020-2021 and I only requested a manual approval by an email button IIRC, that got that page back up as fast as it got taken down.

It is sad that Google Voice and Blogger are neglected enough for this to happen.

And millions of people decided to make a company with no customer service their primary phone provider because it is free. Free comes with tradeoffs.

A free phone number. That comes from a company notorious for no customer service.

It’s not at all justified behaviour. But it isn’t unexpected and it’s irritating that it will probably take other peoples’ resources, i.e. public resources, to resolve.