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> Now, of course, I understand that even Google can't reasonably be expected to provide free 24/7 customer support for the entire Internet. If they had a normal

> Now, of course, I understand that even Google can't reasonably be expected to provide free 24/7 customer support for the entire Internet. If they had a normal phone number available where anybody could reach a human at any time, every confused person would call them with issues that are completely unrelated to Google's actual products and even Google would be overwhelmed. That would be the fair consequence of wanting to dominate the whole internet, no? If any company providing a product would refuse to have a human that is reachable, they would never get to a dominating position. And IMHO, google should be forced to provide that human service given its dimension, or scale down until it does.

logicalmonster 4y ago
I said that because of my life experience. I run some small businesses in some quasi-technical fields. We've gotten phone calls asking for help with fixing peoples' Yahoo mail accounts, asking for returns to stores that were completely different than ours, trying to get refunds on products we don't even sell, and many other nonsensical and time-wasting calls from confused people. If we, at our extremely small scale, were often annoyed by dealing with irrelevant phone calls, I have no doubt that Google would be drowned out by every person who had an issue installing Windows, trying to setup their printer, asking for help getting their money back from a shoe store, running out of gas on the highway, their apartment not turning on the heat high enough, and a host of unrelated things that most of us would never dream of calling Google about. I'm not asking for perfection from Google: I'm just asking for Google to help desperate people that are completely screwed and giving them some option, even if it requires some payment, to fix major life-changing issues.
- McDyver 4y ago
  That is the price of dealing with the public, tbf. People are how they are and will always find the path of least resistance to get their problems solved. That doesn't exclude them or anyone from providing support to the services they offer, and that people pay for (one way or the other)
- noAnswer 4y ago
  Having a costumer only hotline which only connects you after entering your customer ID and or Support-PIN would be a start. I know of multiple company's which have that.
- singleshot_ 4y ago
  Maybe they could sell the space at the beginning of each call and run an ad there?

logicalmonster 4y ago

I said that because of my life experience. I run some small businesses in some quasi-technical fields. We've gotten phone calls asking for help with fixing peoples' Yahoo mail accounts, asking for returns to stores that were completely different than ours, trying to get refunds on products we don't even sell, and many other nonsensical and time-wasting calls from confused people. If we, at our extremely small scale, were often annoyed by dealing with irrelevant phone calls, I have no doubt that Google would be drowned out by every person who had an issue installing Windows, trying to setup their printer, asking for help getting their money back from a shoe store, running out of gas on the highway, their apartment not turning on the heat high enough, and a host of unrelated things that most of us would never dream of calling Google about. I'm not asking for perfection from Google: I'm just asking for Google to help desperate people that are completely screwed and giving them some option, even if it requires some payment, to fix major life-changing issues.

McDyver 4y ago
That is the price of dealing with the public, tbf. People are how they are and will always find the path of least resistance to get their problems solved. That doesn't exclude them or anyone from providing support to the services they offer, and that people pay for (one way or the other)
noAnswer 4y ago
Having a costumer only hotline which only connects you after entering your customer ID and or Support-PIN would be a start. I know of multiple company's which have that.
singleshot_ 4y ago
Maybe they could sell the space at the beginning of each call and run an ad there?