As we've all noticed from the shittier Google results the last several years, this has been known. The surprising part is that this communication was not done over the phone or some other secretive non-transcripted way. At least this time. Amateur-hour on Jerry's part.
That only works if the other party is already willing to do what you want. "I'll need that in writing" is the root password for avoiding these kinds of requests.
While I understand the frustrations people have with Google search, these changes in itself don't seem that bad, although I do agree that pursuing revenue as your sole purpose definitely can lead you astray.
So if I'm following it correctly, the email boils down to "please revert $POPULAR_CHANGE because it makes us less money on search ads, but don't tell people that's why we're doing it!"
(Someone who is a more diligent sleuth than I could probably figure out, but I don't know how to search Reddit for threads in ~April 2019 asking about bugs in Chrome related to features that launched ~October 2018.)
Where are you getting there being a rollback? The earliest emails in the thread say there won't be a rollback, and the newest email asks for that decision to be reconsidered. Nowhere does it say that a rollback actually happened.
(The reddit thread isn't about a rollback, it's about an ablation experiment on a small % of users.)
I'm almost certain it's this - that was added in Chrome 69 [0] which was released ~7 months prior which lines up with the email thread.
[0] - https://venturebeat.com/business/chrome-69-arrives-with-reva...
ah but it's fine because he's "super proud of our pure approach here at Google"
and he doesn't want the message to be "Ads team needs revenue" because "that's a very negative message"
jesus, what an asshole
I've never felt about better blocking all ads and switching off every single Google product
I think at this point it's beyond likely that Manifest V3 and WEI and a product of this sort of thinking to stop adblocking
I'm not claiming I know an answer here, given Amazon's attempt at the opposite fuck employees, do everything possible to please customers hasn't really worked out, either.
If the FTC and US court system have any backbone, I guess hopefully the answer is stop letting single companies get this powerful. The market can only help if there's actually a market.
And I guess quit it with the mandatory return-to-office policies so your employees don't have to live in high cost of living areas and maybe missing a quarter or two's targets and having to take home 600k instead of 800k one year won't be life-destroying.