Not the parent poster, but I'll take a stab at this. I'd wager that the parent poster doesn't have any sort of direct relationship with the local pet shelter:

Not the parent poster, but I'll take a stab at this. I'd wager that the parent poster doesn't have any sort of direct relationship with the local pet shelter: there's no contract, or handshake agreements, nothing like that. The lack of a relationship is key. Google provides services to a large number of people, and while they don't charge (most) consumers directly for those services in dollar-units, Google's user base does pay via other means: nominally by being on the receiving end of hyper-targeted ads. There's a relationship there. Google provides a service, in exchange for psychological capital, which Google then translates into cashflow via advertisers. Relationships, good ones at least, require trust. And the fact that I know that there is a server inside of Google which will mercilessly nuke my account from orbit without warning... isn't exactly trust-inspiring. Moreover, I know that if that does happen, I have effectively zero options to resolve the problem. I'm screwed. Google could choose to fix this problem, and to invest their rather substantial resources in building trust. But they don't, and instead kick out toy apps like the above. This sends a very strong message to people like the parent poster, in that Google doesn't really value them or their well-being. Now, Google isn't required to be trustworthy. Plenty of organizations aren't. But there's nothing wrong with customers calling that out and demanding more when they feel Google isn't allocating its resources in their best interests. It's also completely within Google's purview to utterly ignore them. That's the difference: in one case, there's an established relationship, and that comes with certain expectations. In the other, not so much.