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I wonder what it would take to bring a culture change to Google so they can finally start having some empathy for customers and stop the casual cruelty. A new C

by bilalq 4y ago

I wonder what it would take to bring a culture change to Google so they can finally start having some empathy for customers and stop the casual cruelty. A new CEO?

coffeefirst 4y ago
It’s probably too big for one strong personality to get it back to the Don’t Be Evil days. Regulation, litigation, or split it into pieces.
- dzhiurgis 4y ago
  IMO we really need regulation on how support is done by big tech. It should be really hard for them to close accounts like this.
  - llanowarelves 4y ago
    Agreed. This issue seems to be popping up constantly on the front page. Not just Google but many of these companies. I should not be able to get customer service from a random McDonalds franchise over a chicken sandwich easier than a company that we spend thousands, tens, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars with. They do not get to use "We're too big with too many customers" as a defense. They can figure it out.
- Croftengea 4y ago
  When was the last time any big company was split? AT&T 50 years ago, any newer examples? Nowadays big tech is too influential to allow politicians to make such decisions.
emsy 4y ago
Regulation, full stop. The reason Big tech makes so much profits is because they have no accountability and at their scale, social shaming doesn’t work.
- rglullis 4y ago
  Right. Heavily-regulated industries like banking, auto and healthcare are known for being so much better at treating its customers like human beings...
  - harry8 4y ago
    Yup. Too big to fail sucks just as hard in banking. Google needs to be broken up as badly as banks do. It's a battle that keeps on coming up and here it is again.
    - whatshisface 4y ago
      What would someone break Google up into, ad and vertisements? If you look at their quarterly reports you'll see that they are almost entirely based around one product.
      - rightbyte 4y ago
        You could cut out ads from the rest. And make Google buy ad space from Foogle Search.
        whatshisface 4y ago
        Of the viable companies, each would still be a monopoly.
    - rglullis 4y ago
      Why stop at Google? Why don't we simply get rid of the idea of the mega corporation?[0] [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31317641 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31317641
      - deelowe 4y ago
        Because it’s regressive. We need to fix the issues, not throw the whole thing out.
seaman1921 4y ago
empathy for customers not paying ? lol
- bratbag 4y ago
  In this case, for customers who do pay and get fucked over by google anyway.
londons_explore 4y ago
I'm kinda surprised they don't voluntarily allow courts to make these tricky decisions for them. Perhaps even offer to pay court costs. They can say: > We suspended your account for violation of XYZ rule. You can appeal internally, and if that is denied, you can ask a court to rule on if you broke this rule. If the court finds you did not violate the rule, we will reinstate your account. We will provide any data from your account to the court to make its decision, including proprietary data that we cannot reveal directly to you, for example data about other linked accounts.
thinkingemote 4y ago
Ironically, empathy is the reason why they are doing this. Empathy for the support worker. They literally call it Human Ops. The idea is that support work is horrible for their intelligent engineers and so they invest in AI to replace human the bad jobs that impact humans. Of course human ops is originally about reducing actual traumatic jobs like reviewing actual evil images, but its basically now all brain work which techies hate.
amirhirsch 4y ago
It won’t happen. Google is probably going to be like the next IBM: a former tech giant that became irrelevant.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  I wouldn't be so sure that will happen to Alphabet before it does to Amazon or MS. Nothing lasts forever, though IBM aren't actually showing any signs of dying outright yet, despite the fact their own attempt to get into the cloud platform market hasn't exactly been inspiring (even if they were only ever intending to cater for niche markets).
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
xtracto 4y ago
They should be freaking broken: 1. Ad business should be one thing 2. Other products should be different companies: Gmail, GCS, Domains, etc etc. They should not be "cushioned" by Ad business revenue. That way they will play an even playing field with similar companies. And I think Amazon/AWS should have the same split. If that happens, these companies will have to differentiate to their customers with non-crappy customer support.
ravenstine 4y ago
I doubt that can happen organically. The Google is ground zero for ego in Silicon Valley. When ego is inflated, empathy must deflate to make room.
chr15m 4y ago
Stop using their products and giving them money.

by bilalq 4y ago

I wonder what it would take to bring a culture change to Google so they can finally start having some empathy for customers and stop the casual cruelty. A new CEO?

coffeefirst 4y ago

It’s probably too big for one strong personality to get it back to the Don’t Be Evil days. Regulation, litigation, or split it into pieces.

dzhiurgis 4y ago
IMO we really need regulation on how support is done by big tech. It should be really hard for them to close accounts like this.
- llanowarelves 4y ago
  Agreed. This issue seems to be popping up constantly on the front page. Not just Google but many of these companies. I should not be able to get customer service from a random McDonalds franchise over a chicken sandwich easier than a company that we spend thousands, tens, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars with. They do not get to use "We're too big with too many customers" as a defense. They can figure it out.
Croftengea 4y ago
When was the last time any big company was split? AT&T 50 years ago, any newer examples? Nowadays big tech is too influential to allow politicians to make such decisions.

emsy 4y ago

Regulation, full stop. The reason Big tech makes so much profits is because they have no accountability and at their scale, social shaming doesn’t work.

rglullis 4y ago
Right. Heavily-regulated industries like banking, auto and healthcare are known for being so much better at treating its customers like human beings...
- harry8 4y ago
  Yup. Too big to fail sucks just as hard in banking. Google needs to be broken up as badly as banks do. It's a battle that keeps on coming up and here it is again.
  - whatshisface 4y ago
    What would someone break Google up into, ad and vertisements? If you look at their quarterly reports you'll see that they are almost entirely based around one product.
    - rightbyte 4y ago
      You could cut out ads from the rest. And make Google buy ad space from Foogle Search.
      - whatshisface 4y ago
        Of the viable companies, each would still be a monopoly.
  - rglullis 4y ago
    Why stop at Google? Why don't we simply get rid of the idea of the mega corporation?[0] [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31317641 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31317641
    - deelowe 4y ago
      Because it’s regressive. We need to fix the issues, not throw the whole thing out.

seaman1921 4y ago

empathy for customers not paying ? lol

bratbag 4y ago
In this case, for customers who do pay and get fucked over by google anyway.

londons_explore 4y ago

I'm kinda surprised they don't voluntarily allow courts to make these tricky decisions for them. Perhaps even offer to pay court costs. They can say: > We suspended your account for violation of XYZ rule. You can appeal internally, and if that is denied, you can ask a court to rule on if you broke this rule. If the court finds you did not violate the rule, we will reinstate your account. We will provide any data from your account to the court to make its decision, including proprietary data that we cannot reveal directly to you, for example data about other linked accounts.

thinkingemote 4y ago

Ironically, empathy is the reason why they are doing this. Empathy for the support worker. They literally call it Human Ops. The idea is that support work is horrible for their intelligent engineers and so they invest in AI to replace human the bad jobs that impact humans. Of course human ops is originally about reducing actual traumatic jobs like reviewing actual evil images, but its basically now all brain work which techies hate.

amirhirsch 4y ago

It won’t happen. Google is probably going to be like the next IBM: a former tech giant that became irrelevant.

wizofaus 4y ago
I wouldn't be so sure that will happen to Alphabet before it does to Amazon or MS. Nothing lasts forever, though IBM aren't actually showing any signs of dying outright yet, despite the fact their own attempt to get into the cloud platform market hasn't exactly been inspiring (even if they were only ever intending to cater for niche markets).

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

xtracto 4y ago

They should be freaking broken: 1. Ad business should be one thing 2. Other products should be different companies: Gmail, GCS, Domains, etc etc. They should not be "cushioned" by Ad business revenue. That way they will play an even playing field with similar companies. And I think Amazon/AWS should have the same split. If that happens, these companies will have to differentiate to their customers with non-crappy customer support.

ravenstine 4y ago

I doubt that can happen organically. The Google is ground zero for ego in Silicon Valley. When ego is inflated, empathy must deflate to make room.

chr15m 4y ago

Stop using their products and giving them money.