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If you're Google's customer, why is it impossible to get customer support? You're not Google's customer. You're just a product that they convinced to give them

If you're Google's customer, why is it impossible to get customer support? You're not Google's customer. You're just a product that they convinced to give them money in addition to what they get by leveraging your personal information to sell ads.

bllguo 9y ago
I was not aware being a customer is defined by availability of support. You're a customer of X if you pay for goods/services from X. As customers, we're just not nearly as valuable as a big advertiser.
eitally 9y ago
You're wrong, and you're conflating two unlike things. 1) If you are a consumer user taking advantage of free things, information about you has value to the provider. In this case, it has value to Google as an adtech company. But it's also true that Google historically has been very happy to provide free services to users for altruistic purposes, and continues to do so. This can lead to their early demise, but c'est la vie. How things are prioritized for development, much less scheduled for launch or deprecated at Google, are some of the most misunderstood processes/lore in tech. 2) If you are paying Google for product access, that is completely different and a) your data is not mined for advertising nor are ads displayed to you, and b) you have access to paid support.
- eridius 9y ago
  What product does Google provide for altruistic purposes? Just because they haven’t figured out how to monetize something doesn’t mean it was made for altruistic purposes.
  - datguacdoh 9y ago
    Project shield?
  - Buge 9y ago
    Maybe Project Zero. But it does provide security benefits to the whole world, including Google. It also provides good PR, but that generally be the case for any altruistic product.
  - UncleMeat 9y ago
    Absl?
- username223 9y ago
  > You're wrong, and you're conflating two unlike things. The problem is that you can be both of those things at the same time, it takes time and an understanding of legalese to untangle when you're a customer vs. when you're a product, and Google makes basically all of its money from surveillance. If you have multiple PREF cookies (product), will Google use G Suite (customer) info to merge those profiles?

bllguo 9y ago

I was not aware being a customer is defined by availability of support. You're a customer of X if you pay for goods/services from X. As customers, we're just not nearly as valuable as a big advertiser.

eitally 9y ago

You're wrong, and you're conflating two unlike things. 1) If you are a consumer user taking advantage of free things, information about you has value to the provider. In this case, it has value to Google as an adtech company. But it's also true that Google historically has been very happy to provide free services to users for altruistic purposes, and continues to do so. This can lead to their early demise, but c'est la vie. How things are prioritized for development, much less scheduled for launch or deprecated at Google, are some of the most misunderstood processes/lore in tech. 2) If you are paying Google for product access, that is completely different and a) your data is not mined for advertising nor are ads displayed to you, and b) you have access to paid support.

eridius 9y ago
What product does Google provide for altruistic purposes? Just because they haven’t figured out how to monetize something doesn’t mean it was made for altruistic purposes.
- datguacdoh 9y ago
  Project shield?
- Buge 9y ago
  Maybe Project Zero. But it does provide security benefits to the whole world, including Google. It also provides good PR, but that generally be the case for any altruistic product.
- UncleMeat 9y ago
  Absl?
username223 9y ago
> You're wrong, and you're conflating two unlike things. The problem is that you can be both of those things at the same time, it takes time and an understanding of legalese to untangle when you're a customer vs. when you're a product, and Google makes basically all of its money from surveillance. If you have multiple PREF cookies (product), will Google use G Suite (customer) info to merge those profiles?