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> Everyone here is commenting about overautomation, but this isn't an overautomation problem. It's a secondary sanctions problem. It's both. When you work with

by Closi 5y ago

> Everyone here is commenting about overautomation, but this isn't an overautomation problem. It's a secondary sanctions problem. It's both. When you work with tech companies this kind of overautomation is rife. When you work with any other type of business they give you an account manager and you manage these issues openly together with a relationship. If there was a human at Google who picked up the phone and worked out the problem with the developers before this ban was imposed, this could have all been nipped-in-the-bud before an account was terminated. My current account doesn't have much money in it, but my bank would call me if there is an issue which would terminate my account, and I'm confident that they would work with me to offer up solutions rather than instantly terminate it. Google should provide developers more respect than my bank offers average consumers. There is no excuse for them not picking up the phone and just talking these things through before they implement the bans (unless there is active malicious behaviour in an app, in which case I would expect a suspension to happen and be followed up with a phone call straight away).

ocdtrekkie 5y ago
Google is much more profitable than your bank, and this is why. The reason tech companies sit all at the top of most valuable companies is essentially because they've automated away a ton of tasks which normally require hiring a lot of employees. The only way to fix this is to legally require it, because nobody's going to stop the profit train by themselves.
- JacobThreeThree 5y ago
  >because they've automated away a ton of tasks which normally require hiring a lot of employees Or they've simply removed those tasks under the rubric of automation.
- CPLX 5y ago
  > Google is much more profitable than your bank, and this is why. That's not correct. Google is more profitable because it is a monopoly and routinely engages in illegal anti-competitive behavior. It's precisely because this is the case that it's able to have nonexistent customer service and stay in business.
  - ikiris 5y ago
    Ahh yes, Google the bastion of unethical business practices in comparison to.... checks notes banks....
    - CPLX 5y ago
      In both cases the organizations would eventually descend into using the skin of newborn infants for making snack food if they thought it would make them an extra dollar. Which is why both need aggressive regulation.
    - jessaustin 5y ago
      They're not as evil as e.g. Goldman Sachs, but they're significantly more evil than several local banks that I actually use.
    - pyrale 5y ago
      Well, yeah. Bankers would go to jail [1] for the kind of market manipulation google does on ad markets [2]. The realization may not have dawned on our industry yet, but the abuses big tech is currently into are the kind that gave banks their reputation, and also their regulation. [1] e.g.: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-36737666 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-36737666 [2] among others: https://www.forbes.com/sites/enriquedans/2021/01/19/jedi-blue-a-scandal-that-highlights-yet-again-the-need-to-regulate-bigtech/?sh=201b1fd8270d https://www.forbes.com/sites/enriquedans/2021/01/19/jedi-blu...
- Tozen 5y ago
  Good points.
- neilv 5y ago
  > The only way to fix this is to legally require it, because nobody's going to stop the profit train by themselves. I don't know what Google's rates of customer service failures actually are, but even a minuscule of rate of horror stories seems to hurt brand, judging from HN comments. I wonder whether fixing half of, say, 0.00000001% of cases that would otherwise be PR horror stories, could translate into measurable boost to brand value. Maybe all the math has already been done, and all possible wins for creative automation motivated by business payoff (and promo bids) have already been achieved, or maybe not.
  - Majromax 5y ago
    > Maybe all the math has already been done, I doubt it. Brand value is a notoriously fuzzy concept, and corporate decision-making features a heavy measurement bias. A toxic brand might be measurable by the time it's influencing enough purchaser decisions to show up on "would you consider?" surveys, but that's an advanced stage of the problem.
- AniseAbyss 5y ago
  And even if they have a human customer department that you are able to track down it's just some student at a callcenter.
commandlinefan 5y ago
> this kind of overautomation is rife I've never worked with or for Google, but having worked for software companies my whole life, I suspect that it's overautomation, combined with "silo-ing". Even if somebody identifies the problem from the user's perspective, it becomes a rats nest of responsibilities to untangle to figure out who or what group(s) can address it and how. The people who actually understand how a particular component works and can change it are limited to their particular component and the people who are nominally in charge of "everything" have no detailed visibility into anything at all.
- notreallyserio 5y ago
  There's also folks that justify their behavior and choices based on the size of their paychecks. As long as they get big numbers it doesn't matter if others lose their livelihoods arbitrarily and without recourse.

by Closi 5y ago

ocdtrekkie 5y ago

Google is much more profitable than your bank, and this is why. The reason tech companies sit all at the top of most valuable companies is essentially because they've automated away a ton of tasks which normally require hiring a lot of employees. The only way to fix this is to legally require it, because nobody's going to stop the profit train by themselves.

JacobThreeThree 5y ago
>because they've automated away a ton of tasks which normally require hiring a lot of employees Or they've simply removed those tasks under the rubric of automation.
CPLX 5y ago
> Google is much more profitable than your bank, and this is why. That's not correct. Google is more profitable because it is a monopoly and routinely engages in illegal anti-competitive behavior. It's precisely because this is the case that it's able to have nonexistent customer service and stay in business.
- ikiris 5y ago
  Ahh yes, Google the bastion of unethical business practices in comparison to.... checks notes banks....
  - CPLX 5y ago
    In both cases the organizations would eventually descend into using the skin of newborn infants for making snack food if they thought it would make them an extra dollar. Which is why both need aggressive regulation.
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    They're not as evil as e.g. Goldman Sachs, but they're significantly more evil than several local banks that I actually use.
  - pyrale 5y ago
    Well, yeah. Bankers would go to jail [1] for the kind of market manipulation google does on ad markets [2]. The realization may not have dawned on our industry yet, but the abuses big tech is currently into are the kind that gave banks their reputation, and also their regulation. [1] e.g.: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-36737666 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-36737666 [2] among others: https://www.forbes.com/sites/enriquedans/2021/01/19/jedi-blue-a-scandal-that-highlights-yet-again-the-need-to-regulate-bigtech/?sh=201b1fd8270d https://www.forbes.com/sites/enriquedans/2021/01/19/jedi-blu...
Tozen 5y ago
Good points.
neilv 5y ago
> The only way to fix this is to legally require it, because nobody's going to stop the profit train by themselves. I don't know what Google's rates of customer service failures actually are, but even a minuscule of rate of horror stories seems to hurt brand, judging from HN comments. I wonder whether fixing half of, say, 0.00000001% of cases that would otherwise be PR horror stories, could translate into measurable boost to brand value. Maybe all the math has already been done, and all possible wins for creative automation motivated by business payoff (and promo bids) have already been achieved, or maybe not.
- Majromax 5y ago
  > Maybe all the math has already been done, I doubt it. Brand value is a notoriously fuzzy concept, and corporate decision-making features a heavy measurement bias. A toxic brand might be measurable by the time it's influencing enough purchaser decisions to show up on "would you consider?" surveys, but that's an advanced stage of the problem.
AniseAbyss 5y ago
And even if they have a human customer department that you are able to track down it's just some student at a callcenter.

commandlinefan 5y ago

> this kind of overautomation is rife I've never worked with or for Google, but having worked for software companies my whole life, I suspect that it's overautomation, combined with "silo-ing". Even if somebody identifies the problem from the user's perspective, it becomes a rats nest of responsibilities to untangle to figure out who or what group(s) can address it and how. The people who actually understand how a particular component works and can change it are limited to their particular component and the people who are nominally in charge of "everything" have no detailed visibility into anything at all.

notreallyserio 5y ago
There's also folks that justify their behavior and choices based on the size of their paychecks. As long as they get big numbers it doesn't matter if others lose their livelihoods arbitrarily and without recourse.