For example, they probably get thousands of requests for account assistance. But they have full access to the emails in the account. And related metadata like age of account, volume of emails, other services used (Android apps released, Youtube videos created), and others. It should be simple to create an algorithm to prioritize the requests. So if an account was created a week ago and doesn't have much history? Low priority. An account is 10+ years old and has regular bank statement emails incoming? Highest priority.

And if that's too much work, just provide a paid option. Tell users that if their issue is really important, then pay some amount (such as $50) to get immediate urgent support. The user with a one week old account won't care enough to pay. The spam scammers obviously won't pay. But the user with all bank accounts, brokerage accounts, other important services going through their gmail account? They will likely pay to get assistance.

Instead every account gets the same shitty treatment. They could easily identify the important accounts to look into first using data analysis and algorithms. They're supposed to be good at this stuff! Or provide a paid option. Or do both. Only explanation I can think of is that it doesn't look good enough for a promotion so nobody at Google cares.

1. My ad clicks went from a steady 500 a day to 1-5 a day and my revenues plummeted. I contacted Google. After one month of of being passed around they tell me they're not allowed to disclose what's wrong, but I can try labeling my ads as "Advertisements" on my site. One month of waiting for that response.

2. Recently Google started clawing back 50% of my monthly earnings at the end of the month. It's typically 0-10%. However, it just jumped to 50% the last couple of months. So they give me daily reports that I'm earning $150 per day, and then at the end of the month they just say nope, we're actually going to only give you half of that revenue. Oh, and we can't tell you why, that's confidential. I searched online and found lots of people recently reporting 30-80% of their revenues are being taken away. No one can get a reply from Google. What's even worse, I use header bidding. So someone opens my site, Google says they'll pay X to show an advertisement to that user, they outbid my other networks, and then a month later they say they can't actually pay that price. Meanwhile, my other ad networks could have shown an ad, but Google outbid them with a price they're not willing to pay.

3. I tried to setup an in house advertisement the other day using Google DoubleClick. The idea is that I create an ad for my Patreon page, and if none of the ad networks I run can pay more than X for that impression, then it shows my Patreon advertisement. Well, Google says Patreon is malvertising, and they won't let me run a display advertisement on my own site, linking to my own Patreon page. What does that notification say in the ad manager? It says they can't disclose any additional information and not to contact them.

This company is a joke. They've collected at least 100k in commission from me, and I get zero support. I'd like to fix that issue resulting in half of my revenue being taken away each month. Nope, no one I can talk with, and if I do talk with anyone, they can't disclose that information or what ad unit is the source of the issue. I need to try making a change, and then cross my fingers that one month later I don't lose most of my revenue. It would probably take a year to understand the issue with monthly experiments. Anyway, I'm in the process of removing Google from my life now. I have zero respect for that company.

I’ve had a gmail account since early beta. I upgraded to their $10 per month for 1 tb storage (which they recently increased to 2 tb). I recently got a better deal from Microsoft so want to switch. So over a week ago I deleted my entire Google Drive. Except it put everything into the Google Drive “trash” that still counts against me. I immediately emptied the trash except that literally did nothing that I could tell.

Then, about 100 GB per day has been freeing up from the trash for the last week and a half. I can’t cancel the extra storage until this is complete or I’ll stop receiving email on my gmail account. At the snail’s pace that it’s freeing up storage on my Google Drive from the trash they’ll be charging me another month. It’s ridiculous. And as a paying customer there’s no practical way to contact them.

Support is one of the things you get if you pay for storage, though?

Yes, and it's completely useless. Their user interface is such an anti-pattern that it has to be by design. All I want to do is delete everything in Google Drive and delete everything in Google Photos. For Google Photos, the fastest way to do this is to zoom out ridiculously, hold the shift key down, click the first photo to delete, then the last photo you can see on the screen and then release the shift key, click delete and repeat like 200 times for the number of photos I had on there. Oh and don't scroll out TOO much or your browser will just crash. Seriously, this is their answer to deleting photos.

And Google Drive is no better. 1.2 TB of files from my drive and cleared out the trash at least 75 times but a week and a half later I still have over 100 GB in phantom files. And suddenly all these additional images showed up when I click on Storage in drive.google.com and you guessed it - I have to delete them one page at a time. It's like they're doing anything to make sure you can't get your account under 15 GB so you can stop paying them money. And their support just gives generic advice like what I've typed here.

I've switched entirely to the new Microsoft Edge for browsing, OneDrive for storage and the only thing I have left is an ancient gmail account that I'll likely be switching over to Fastmail.

I finally solved my problem by interfacing directly with their API and writing a Python script to recursively download larger folders. It's sad that I was forced to do that, but it worked.

I think this is the most troubling aspect of Google (free) services. This is why I bit the bullet a couple of years ago and started running my own mail server. The buck stops here :)

I pay for a personal google account there. It gives me the peace of mind everyone's talking about. And I get customer support when I need it.

My total monthly spend with Google (between myself and my clients) is relatively tiny (under $100 USD).

In my experience, the support has always been stellar. Starts with chat (which I prefer), but if that isn't enough to resolve the issue, it gets escalated to a higher level and an offer for them to call me.

I live in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Haha, I last used it for the same reason :) What a dumb system that is…

But overall I've had success with GSuite support yes. I mean, I've not often needed it, but part of it is knowing that it is there in case my account does get fucked with. Huge reassurance.

No! We need to demand more from Google (or, at least our lawmakers). I have a business that relies on a Chrome extension to be on their web store.

Say I accidentally trip off something in their opaque machine learning algorithm that determines my extension (or even a YouTube comment!) breaks their terms of service. They would have the right to completely block my account and remove the extension. Effectively, wiping out how I make a living with a single automated bit flip.

It hasn't happened to me, but the people that share horror stories of how it happened to them scares the $#!7 out of me.

As the Internet gets more privatized and less "open", I just wish there was something that required a fair "trial" of my account being suspended. The balance of power online is slowly shifting and I feel there needs to be something protecting the rights of individuals (the public) online.

I wouldn't hold my breath. I encourage people to put their money where their mouth is. E.g., I host my email with Fastmail.com. is that free? No, and thank goodness.

Google's core business is selling your eyeballs to people who want to influence you. Their relationship to eyeball owners is statistical; as long as they are providing adequate quantities of wallet-connected eyeballs to the highest bidder, they do fine. This drives a fundamentally different culture than businesses that live and die by customer relationships. And culture is extremely hard to change.

I don't know Google's numbers offhand, but Twitter's revenue is about $1 per eyeball-pair per month, with per-user profit much lower. Think about your salary, and then think about how much work you'd be willing to do for a given account. By my numbers, handling one medium-sized customer service issue could easily wipe out an entire lifetime of profit.

And that's before we even get into the literal millions of scammers, jerks, loons, and mafiosi that would a) happily misuse a Google account, and b) will eagerly waste hours of customer service time lying up a storm. Every extra inch Google gives an actual well-intentioned user means a few hundred miles taken up by that lot. Which is expensive indeed.

So I am entirely grateful that I'm paying Fastmail $50/account/year. That builds a culture of wanting each customer to succeed. Of wanting customers to say good things to potential customers. Which means if that there's some bump in the relationship, they're going to at least hear me out. If you too want that, please pay people money for services.

And people will leave Google for another free email service if even a small percent of people begin to lose their accounts.

Google definitely has an incentive to keep email functional.

Average person: 1k, "what glitch?" 10k, "So what." 100k, "It didn't happen to me." 1m, "I don't use it for anything important anyway."

Google has ~ 1.5 billion users. If something happens to 1 in 1000 people, then a) it won't happen to most people, b) most people won't know anybody it happened to, and c) maybe it happens to a friend of a friend. If they hear about it, they will likely say, "Oh, I'm sure there's a reason."

A reporter might hear stories about people who lose their accounts. They might even find those people. But so what? Right here in this discussion we're hearing those stories. Could this be happening to a million people across the globe per year? Sure. Does anybody know the true number? Nope.

So if you could discover the hard number (which you can't), maybe you could get a tech reporter to write about it. Then Google PR would go into action. They'd say correctly that it's a small fraction of their users, that keeping everyone safe is a difficult problem, and that they work hard to make sure everybody who should have access does, but sometimes people get swept up in Google's crime-fighting. All of which is true! Then they'll turn back on the accounts of the people the reporter actually talked to. PR will say that they've made process changes that have solved the problem, the reporter will include the happy endings, and that will be the end of it.

Just for comparison, tobacco kills about a half-million people a year in the US. It's totally unnecessary, but it's profitable for the tobacco companies. As long as it's killing somebody else, people are basically fine with it. If they can be chill about that, they will certainly be chill about you losing your Google account. They'll think you probably did something.

Demand all you want. Remember that you're not a customer, you're a user. Google offers their free services to keep you in their ecosystem, which allows them to collect more of your data and serve you more ads.

Users are much more disposable than paying customers. So what if they piss off a few users? As long as most people keep using Android, Chrome, Google Maps, Google search, YouTube, etc, there is no risk towards their bottom line.

Sure, you could try to go after them with government regulation, but they have tons of lobbying power. On top of that, even laws with the best intentions can often backfire and sometimes do more harm than good.

The only thing you can reasonably do is recognize your position and make sure you are never dependent on Google. You can still use Google services; just make sure you have a plan for when that suddenly stops being an option.

Even paying customers can be removed without trial.

Peterson wasn't removed, he left in protest, along with Sam Harris and others, after Carl Benjamin ("Sargon of Akkad") was removed over what Patreon considered to be a policy breach. [1]

I'm not expressing any position on whether or not the Carl Benjamin ban was valid, I'm just wanting to correct the record.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com.au/patreon-crowdfunding-plat...

Except some very few regulated things, no store has an obligation to carry this or that brand of product. Even in retail.

The way it works with Android apps is if some random code quality shell script of questionable quality flags your app, the app will be removed and you will get a lifetime developer ban from Google. There is no human in the loop and no appeals process.

Because there's a monopoly for Android apps, there is no reason for them to ever improve customer/developer service.

An excellent analogy would be getting banned for life by a programmers union if anything you write ever fails a valgrind test. Doesn't matter if its a bug in that revision of the valgrind test and there will never be any human contact in the process.

"I've been banned from google and I don't even know why" is a weekly discussion topic on android development forums.

Even funnier is Google implements guilt by association. So if you have a similar email address or ip address to someone who gets banned, the same shell scripts will lifetime ban your account under their ban evasion policy.

Or because of how much of a larger audience the Play Store has.

Installing an APK from a website has never been an easier process. I do not see how Google can simplify it any more. You are asked 2 things:

- Can we allow your browser to download files?

- Can we install this app on your device?

I would say in addition to the "scary stuff" warnings Google employs on devices, they went out of their way to harm any serious contender for outside distribution.

Epic also went on a significant campaign to be allowed to distribute through Play, but utilize their own payment provider, but Google's monopoly wouldn't budge:

Google's Play Store demands aren't about security, they're about the 30% taxation.

Can you provide references?

On at least four Android phones to allow installing unsigned APKs I've had warnings about "Scary Stuff"[tm]* if I proceed...

* I paraphrase...

It works.

Now you've lost your job and you're banned for life from making android apps?

SOUNDS UTTERLY FANTASTIC! (actually sounds totally evil)

Your comparison of Google Play being like a normal store, would then make Android the town the store is in.

Would your position be that Walmart should be allowed to pay off the town to prevent Kroger from opening?

It's just incredibly hard and not worth it to start an alternative legit store unless you are huge with something that customers really want and that is not available somewhere else. (ie: Epic Games with the Epic Store for Fortnite)

Even amazon failed at this, so it is not just incredibly hard, the road blokes Google puts in place for people wanting to create another store is defacto impossible. Further they they are more extreme then what Microsoft did in the 1990's with IE that caused an AntiTrust violation and they were forced to easily allow other browsers and allow them to be changed as the default

I am not sure why Google can get way with what they do, even less sure how Apple gets away with it

I hope we get to the point where something in the commons (government or whatever), can offer comparable assurances about digital things that are becoming critical infrastructure in our lives

Welcome to the new old world. :(

No, you should operate on the basis that google can stop doing business with you for anytime for any reason and make plan accordingly.

If there is any need, it is from your government (wherever it is) to go break the Google self-supporting monopolies.

You can try to demand that a private company offers you high quality service for free, but I wouldn't recommend wasting your time. Alternatively, you can try to use other services, but again, those multiple self-reinforcing monopolies are an issue.

It might work if you get an GCE VM and crossload your Google takeout to cloud storage and then download using cloud storage APIs.

This sounds very much like the old-world Christian conception of "acts of God" re: natural disasters and the like.

The Catholic Church has the concept of saints, highly placed people that intercede with God on behalf of common people. For dealing with Google, modern people petition "influencers"

You're dead right. So now, in addition to trying to exercise every day, and unpack another box from moving every day, I'm committing to moving one account email to Fastmail every day.

Famous people have lost content on google and youtube. Blocked emails. Lost videos. etc etc. I'm a nobody. If famous, "important" people have their accounts "accidentally" deleted

There have been far too many incidents where people who become virally infamous immediately have their accounts blocked or deleted mysteriously, followed by having them restored with no explanation. This indicates that Google/YouTube employs people who will arbitrarily abuse their power in the control of these valuable and highly private information resources, over whom Google/YouTube has too little actual control of oversight.

Downvotable Material: There's a certain billionaire who wants to privatize the right to travel through a certain "passport" he's advocating. Will they just be able to turn you off and there will only be non-existent or unresponsive customer service that will just tell you that there are "reasons" why you're not in the system any more and they are a private company and can do whatever they want and buying their product is optional, when it really isn't. Hopefully, if this ever comes to pass, there will be extensive regulatory legislation like the Fair Credit Reporting Act to keep this sort of thing subject to due process and transparency. The global nature of this "passport" means that when in foreign countries with weak judicial systems they might still be able to arbitrarily terminate your account.

I would add (free) Github to that list.

If you live in Iran, not having GitHub is a problem, but not your biggest one.

The war (and the warmongers) is your main problem. The rest are a large pile of details. When the tanks roll in I'm not worried about my GitHub issues.

I think there were OneDrive-triggered killing spree at some point when they made backup to it more or less silent and offended by what people were “uploading to website”

This is an important number. 1% annual chance? bad deal. 0.01% annual chance? Maybe worth the risk. 0.0001%? Sure, I'm more likely to get hit by lightning.

Not sure how to judge the annual risk, but there seem to be a lot of other stories like this.

I prefer to think of it in terms of "nines" of reliability. My account was "up" pretty continuously for maybe eight years. It's been "down" continuously for four years plus the next thirty-plus that I might need it. So, a total downtime of 0.81. Being charitable, I'll call that one "nine".

Nowhere in tech would that be considered acceptable.

This is exactly the argument that android/ios apps, google accounts etc, is it optional or not. I couldn't go to the gym where I paid in advance because I didn't have supported phone (latest android or ios). You'll always have a choice right, now it's the choice to wash your clothes by hand. Who knows next time you might not get an apartment without a gov approved android/ios app on your phone, it's a brave good old world again.

Q: Wouldn't it be better to pay a small amount to $anyoneOtherThanGoogle ?