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Its very disturbing for me as a google user and an android phone bearer seeing many of those posts coming up. So in all fairness if I ever get my account locke

by muse900 10y ago

Its very disturbing for me as a google user and an android phone bearer seeing many of those posts coming up. So in all fairness if I ever get my account locked for whatever reason, I need to make noise on reddit and yc news to get it resolved? That really makes me feel uncertain about the google apps I use day to day. They need to change something soon on their policies or they'll start losing customers. P.S there was a post here the other day about someone that got his account closed due to a breach of service etc. I don't mind that obviously google can close your account if it feels you are violating their terms, what shouldn't be able to do is to lock access to your data or the option to extract your data off their servers.

mamadrood 10y ago
The worse thing is, I don't think they care about losing users, they are like 90s Microsoft, there are no alternative for most of the services they give. They would care about losing customers, but Google customers are not its users, it's the guys who buy advertising space.
- iainmerrick 10y ago
  Even if that's true, they still care about losing users -- users are inventory!
  - morganvachon 10y ago
    Yes, but if your inventory is over a billion units worldwide, you don't even notice a few thousand a year disappearing from the shelves.
  - a3n 10y ago
    This is just "shrinkage." It's factored in. A certain percentage of your inventory will be stolen off the shelves per year. Your rental property will stand empty a certain percentage of the year. A certain number of your cows and chickens will die, or fall ill and be "culled." A certain number of your engineers will move on. A certain number of your containers will fall overboard and spread yellow rubber duckies around the word's oceans.
- johansch 10y ago
  For every 1 user they spend $25 on not losing they could get another 10 users in emerging regions that will make them lots of more money in a few years. The tyranny of being a customer to a company that has 2-3 billion "customers".
  - johansch 10y ago
    So this is apparently offensive in HN-land. Since I have no idea why, how about if you also leave a comment with your next downvote, deal? I'm honestly really curious.
    - mSparks 10y ago
      mostly google employees reading hn these days would be my guess. anything that suggests google isnt and never was the "do no evil" company and is rather just another pyschopathic corporate machine will just attract the wrath of said psychopathic corporate machine.
- crystalmeph 10y ago
  This guy was actually a customer, he had made several purchases that were locked up in his account. With Google Play, every user is at least a potential paying customer, so there's really no excuse for this lack of customer service. It is possible that the reason their customer service is so terrible sometimes is because the culture still doesn't necessarily think of users as customers. But they've got strong competition from Apple, at least, so I would expect this kind of situation to get better once they manage that mind shift.
thearn4 10y ago
> they'll start losing customers my understanding is that at their core, they are an ad tech company. Their actual customers are on Madison avenue, and I imagine, get excellent support.
cr1895 10y ago
>what shouldn't be able to do is to lock access to your data or the option to extract your data off their servers. FWIW, download all your Google stuff: https://www.google.com/settings/takeout https://www.google.com/settings/takeout
mhurron 10y ago
> So in all fairness if I ever get my account locked for whatever reason, I need to make noise on reddit and yc news to get it resolved? That is beginning to be increasingly required for everything. We had an issue with our land line when it would rain. Called the phone company, was 'fixed' every time, until it rained again. This went on for 12 months or so. Suggested to my wife she complain on their Facebook page. They called us, there was a truck out the next day, found the issue and actually fixed it. Never would have happened without the public complaint.
- dnm 10y ago
  I had the same problem. Verizon's solution was to install FIOS. They didn't want to spend the time or money to fix the underground copper.
- jmcdiesel 10y ago
  The problem with this kind of thing is this... If its going out when it rains, its likely wiring on your house, not plant. Its probably past the point of demarkation (where you become liable for the line) ... 99% of the time this is the case (ex phone field tech) You just raised enough attention to make it worthwhile to soak up the cost of replacing YOUR line for you... Congratulations, you may have joined the ranks of entitled people who use public pressure to whine their way into getting what they want...
  - stormbrew 10y ago
    I don't think this is really justified, given the story presented. If the problem with GP's line was on their own property and not the responsibility of the phone company, the phone company has some responsibility to say so and not do some quick non-permanent fix every time they call. We can't all be ex phone field techs. When we call a company providing us a service for support with that service, we expect them to do what they can and inform us of what they can't and what we can do about it. That's not unreasonable or entitled.
  - test6554 10y ago
    If it is my responsibility to pay for something, then just say so. Happy to fix my own messes. But don't tell me it's fixed 12 times over the course of a year and then complain when I demand it be fixed for real. Even though the people on the other end of that line aren't always technically savvy individuals or generally in a good mood, they are adults and should be told the truth so they have a fair shot at solving their problem and moving on with their lives.
a3n 10y ago
> They need to change something soon on their policies or they'll start losing customers. Nah, there are new users born every minute.
danudey 10y ago
Starting to think there might be a market for a service to securely back up your cloud data to not-the-cloud.
- brokenmachine 10y ago
  Google provides takeout but that's no use once your account is removed/locked.
FireBeyond 10y ago
There was some drama last year with respect to the ticket sellers (StubHub, TicketMaster), and the NBA: Before Kobe announced his retirement, a guy bought tickets to the last Lakers home game. They weren't doing very well, and it was against another low tier team, so tickets were cheap (~$100ea?). Months go by. Then Kobe announces his retirement, so this is going to be his last home game ever. Shocking - months after he's bought these tickets, he's contacted by the reseller saying "sorry, the original owner of the tickets said he listed them in error and they're no longer available to you. here's $50 and a refund"... until he kicked up a fuss on Twitter. The other, more egregious? Guy with Playoff tickets to the Warriors is told they're fraudulent by TM. He kicks up a fuss, because initially they say "oh, sorry, too bad, playoffs, sold out, etc". TM realizes he has 250K Twitter followers, and "hey, we got you tickets, we reached out to the Warriors and they helped out"... thinking this deserved a pat on the back for their awesome customer service. Except - cue all the people who jumped on that to say "Guess those of us with non-stratospheric follower numbers are just getting your 'oops. refund + $50 to your next purchase' emails, and you're only reaching out to people who might damage your reputation..."
wheelerwj 10y ago
One of my biggests concerns is that Google products are so pervasive. I have a google device, that uses Google search, that sells me Google ads, while I'm using my Google email, that I read watching a movie in my Google play store, and all the data that I didn't specifically opt out of is backed up on Google cloud (somewhere, it's not in my Google Drive though.). Even my work uses Google Apps for work. I've been feeling it forward a while now but last week I kind of cracked, when I realized I couldn't do a damn thing without using at least once Google service. They have to be one of the most evil, data hungry, invasive corporations of our time and we just hand over our lives with zero recourse because, “it's in our terms of service.". I know most tech giants have migrated to this business model now but I'm out. I can't do it anymore. I know that a smart phone with data is basically an employment requirement now but I'm decoupling everything else I can and switching my device to Apple.
- brokenmachine 10y ago
  Lol, moving to Apple to escape an evil company that doesn't care about its users!
  - wheelerwj 10y ago
    Moving to Apple because it's the best choice. If you have an argument that there is someone better, please let me know.
    - brokenmachine 10y ago
      Best choice for you maybe. It's not perfect, but I'm quite happy with Android overall. I would have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the Apple evil empire. Your complaint was that you couldn't do anything without using at least one google service, and your solution was to not use any google services, thus rendering your initial assertion invalid. Unless, of course, you plan to not do anything on your Apple phone.
      - wheelerwj 10y ago

by muse900 10y ago

mamadrood 10y ago

The worse thing is, I don't think they care about losing users, they are like 90s Microsoft, there are no alternative for most of the services they give. They would care about losing customers, but Google customers are not its users, it's the guys who buy advertising space.

iainmerrick 10y ago
Even if that's true, they still care about losing users -- users are inventory!
- morganvachon 10y ago
  Yes, but if your inventory is over a billion units worldwide, you don't even notice a few thousand a year disappearing from the shelves.
- a3n 10y ago
  This is just "shrinkage." It's factored in. A certain percentage of your inventory will be stolen off the shelves per year. Your rental property will stand empty a certain percentage of the year. A certain number of your cows and chickens will die, or fall ill and be "culled." A certain number of your engineers will move on. A certain number of your containers will fall overboard and spread yellow rubber duckies around the word's oceans.
johansch 10y ago
For every 1 user they spend $25 on not losing they could get another 10 users in emerging regions that will make them lots of more money in a few years. The tyranny of being a customer to a company that has 2-3 billion "customers".
- johansch 10y ago
  So this is apparently offensive in HN-land. Since I have no idea why, how about if you also leave a comment with your next downvote, deal? I'm honestly really curious.
  - mSparks 10y ago
    mostly google employees reading hn these days would be my guess. anything that suggests google isnt and never was the "do no evil" company and is rather just another pyschopathic corporate machine will just attract the wrath of said psychopathic corporate machine.
crystalmeph 10y ago
This guy was actually a customer, he had made several purchases that were locked up in his account. With Google Play, every user is at least a potential paying customer, so there's really no excuse for this lack of customer service. It is possible that the reason their customer service is so terrible sometimes is because the culture still doesn't necessarily think of users as customers. But they've got strong competition from Apple, at least, so I would expect this kind of situation to get better once they manage that mind shift.

thearn4 10y ago

> they'll start losing customers my understanding is that at their core, they are an ad tech company. Their actual customers are on Madison avenue, and I imagine, get excellent support.

cr1895 10y ago

>what shouldn't be able to do is to lock access to your data or the option to extract your data off their servers. FWIW, download all your Google stuff: https://www.google.com/settings/takeout https://www.google.com/settings/takeout

mhurron 10y ago

> So in all fairness if I ever get my account locked for whatever reason, I need to make noise on reddit and yc news to get it resolved? That is beginning to be increasingly required for everything. We had an issue with our land line when it would rain. Called the phone company, was 'fixed' every time, until it rained again. This went on for 12 months or so. Suggested to my wife she complain on their Facebook page. They called us, there was a truck out the next day, found the issue and actually fixed it. Never would have happened without the public complaint.

dnm 10y ago
I had the same problem. Verizon's solution was to install FIOS. They didn't want to spend the time or money to fix the underground copper.
jmcdiesel 10y ago
The problem with this kind of thing is this... If its going out when it rains, its likely wiring on your house, not plant. Its probably past the point of demarkation (where you become liable for the line) ... 99% of the time this is the case (ex phone field tech) You just raised enough attention to make it worthwhile to soak up the cost of replacing YOUR line for you... Congratulations, you may have joined the ranks of entitled people who use public pressure to whine their way into getting what they want...
- stormbrew 10y ago
  I don't think this is really justified, given the story presented. If the problem with GP's line was on their own property and not the responsibility of the phone company, the phone company has some responsibility to say so and not do some quick non-permanent fix every time they call. We can't all be ex phone field techs. When we call a company providing us a service for support with that service, we expect them to do what they can and inform us of what they can't and what we can do about it. That's not unreasonable or entitled.
- test6554 10y ago
  If it is my responsibility to pay for something, then just say so. Happy to fix my own messes. But don't tell me it's fixed 12 times over the course of a year and then complain when I demand it be fixed for real. Even though the people on the other end of that line aren't always technically savvy individuals or generally in a good mood, they are adults and should be told the truth so they have a fair shot at solving their problem and moving on with their lives.

a3n 10y ago

> They need to change something soon on their policies or they'll start losing customers. Nah, there are new users born every minute.

danudey 10y ago

Starting to think there might be a market for a service to securely back up your cloud data to not-the-cloud.

brokenmachine 10y ago
Google provides takeout but that's no use once your account is removed/locked.

FireBeyond 10y ago

There was some drama last year with respect to the ticket sellers (StubHub, TicketMaster), and the NBA: Before Kobe announced his retirement, a guy bought tickets to the last Lakers home game. They weren't doing very well, and it was against another low tier team, so tickets were cheap (~$100ea?). Months go by. Then Kobe announces his retirement, so this is going to be his last home game ever. Shocking - months after he's bought these tickets, he's contacted by the reseller saying "sorry, the original owner of the tickets said he listed them in error and they're no longer available to you. here's $50 and a refund"... until he kicked up a fuss on Twitter. The other, more egregious? Guy with Playoff tickets to the Warriors is told they're fraudulent by TM. He kicks up a fuss, because initially they say "oh, sorry, too bad, playoffs, sold out, etc". TM realizes he has 250K Twitter followers, and "hey, we got you tickets, we reached out to the Warriors and they helped out"... thinking this deserved a pat on the back for their awesome customer service. Except - cue all the people who jumped on that to say "Guess those of us with non-stratospheric follower numbers are just getting your 'oops. refund + $50 to your next purchase' emails, and you're only reaching out to people who might damage your reputation..."

wheelerwj 10y ago

One of my biggests concerns is that Google products are so pervasive. I have a google device, that uses Google search, that sells me Google ads, while I'm using my Google email, that I read watching a movie in my Google play store, and all the data that I didn't specifically opt out of is backed up on Google cloud (somewhere, it's not in my Google Drive though.). Even my work uses Google Apps for work. I've been feeling it forward a while now but last week I kind of cracked, when I realized I couldn't do a damn thing without using at least once Google service. They have to be one of the most evil, data hungry, invasive corporations of our time and we just hand over our lives with zero recourse because, “it's in our terms of service.". I know most tech giants have migrated to this business model now but I'm out. I can't do it anymore. I know that a smart phone with data is basically an employment requirement now but I'm decoupling everything else I can and switching my device to Apple.

brokenmachine 10y ago
Lol, moving to Apple to escape an evil company that doesn't care about its users!
- wheelerwj 10y ago
  Moving to Apple because it's the best choice. If you have an argument that there is someone better, please let me know.
  - brokenmachine 10y ago
    Best choice for you maybe. It's not perfect, but I'm quite happy with Android overall. I would have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the Apple evil empire. Your complaint was that you couldn't do anything without using at least one google service, and your solution was to not use any google services, thus rendering your initial assertion invalid. Unless, of course, you plan to not do anything on your Apple phone.
    - wheelerwj 10y ago