Personally, I've given up hope that the world will ever be different. But if there is any hope, it will take the form of: "We will no longer tolerate your impersonal policies and rationalizations". So we should try to speak out against it.
But yeah. People are irrational cows that throw money at anything shiny. So that won't happen, and the world won't change.
Moo.
Personally, I feel this is a simple matter of personal responsibility. It's free, so you can't expect support. If you're not okay with that, pay someone and ask them for guarantees.
¹ Yes, I know there are other costs, but I don't think their value to Google covers anything similar to real support.
I don't think that is terribly challenging viewpoint.
There are infinite degrees of nuance everywhere you look. We use language to reduce that complexity. You can call it sophistry as much as you like — the reason it's polarizing is because the reality sucks for 99% of people who need Google's help — they're not treated as customers as most people understand that term. Inconvenient but true.
You begin with what seems like disagreement, then prove my point.
A $600 device to be exposed to Google's mobile ads? Here's an email.
A few million dollars a year in ad spend? Here's a whole department of new friends.
Solving problems with AdWords can be done algorithmically. And is – there are lots of little automated touches there, from ad approval to keyword suggestion. But smart humans can give more – resulting in better financial performance for Google.
Code can rarely resolve support issues. But that's all they bothered to do because end users are not a priority. For all the reasons I mentioned.
When it benefits them financially, Google offers support. Otherwise, they don't. You can chalk this up to whatever cultural or business case you'd like.
But the end result is that unless you're pouring money into their pockets, you, as an individual, don't matter to Google. That's not sophistry – that's established fact.