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I disagree. The amount of people they'd have to hire to support that 1% of their users could make the service untenable as free to the rest of us. In my opini

by bmelton 14y ago

I disagree. The amount of people they'd have to hire to support that 1% of their users could make the service untenable as free to the rest of us. In my opinion, the thing done wrong was offering support through unofficial channels. It sets the wrong expectations and perpetuates the notion that if you know the right people, you'll get the support that others can't, and honestly don't deserve. If I give rakes out to 100 people, should I have to hire staff to fix the ones that break? No. I gave them something for free. If they don't like it, they can go somewhere else. If they buy a rake, then they'll get a warranty, and be entitled to speak to a human about it. To your point directly though, it IS an excuse to provide shitty service, if they did that. As you said, it's beautiful and perfect for more than 99% of their customers.

thinkdevcode 14y ago
Your rake analogy is not sound. Ok so Google gives Gmail for free - as in you don't need to pay for it. But is it really "free"? No. They parse your emails so they know what you are buying/selling, who you are talking to, what sites you have a membership on, etc. They also use Gmail to display ads (based off of the things they learned from your emails) to make money off of you. They probably do other things i'm not even thinking of right now. So is it really free? Not at all. Is it a great source of information about you (to then be used by them to target ads at you)? Absolutely. They should be providing support for it. I don't know what that support should look like (be it a call center, forums, etc), but I definitely think that if I give Google permission to snoop through my personal email so they can build better ads for me (which is how they make the majority of their money) I expect some damn support.
- bmelton 14y ago
  Since that shoe had to drop, you could also point out that they DO provide support. There are google groups, message boards, support forums, HowTos. There's even Prioritized phone support that you can apparently sign up for.[1] It's not as though they hand you the source code and a note saying "Good luck." [1] - http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1752770 http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&a...
  - slurgfest 14y ago
    The source code would be more helpful, since a thousand companies would already be competing for the privilege to provide basic support to individual users.
    - bmelton 14y ago
      By that same argument, you'd think that companies providing a gmail-like service + support would be making piles and piles of money. Are there any? (Not snark, I genuinely don't know of any.)
theretodivert 14y ago
Comparing email, adsense, etc. to rakes is flawed. (Please, don't persuade me otherwise.) I agree that the gmail economic model might not be feasible if support costs were included. But I don't know that numbers so my agreement is not important. If 99% of users have no problem with google's services currently then, X% have no problem with google's services in the future. I'm not sure how to solve for X.
- bmelton 14y ago
  I don't necessarily disagree, but the assumption that not providing support on a free service is evil is the more flawed idea, I think. Also, as I recently discovered, Google does have a for-pay phone support service for Gmail users, as well as all the other forms of support they offer in the form of message board, how tos, google groups, etc.
slurgfest 14y ago
People depend heavily on these services. Google does not discourage them. I would love it if the front page of gmail.com read like: "EASY COME, EASY GO Gmail is a quick and dirty email service for people who don't really need reliable access. Please do not bother signing up unless it does not matter whether you lose the address and all your email." I think that would begin to resolve the problem being highlighted here for sure.
- bmelton 14y ago
  Something like this? From their terms. OTHER THAN AS EXPRESSLY SET OUT IN THESE TERMS OR ADDITIONAL TERMS, NEITHER GOOGLE NOR ITS SUPPLIERS OR DISTRIBUTORS MAKE ANY SPECIFIC PROMISES ABOUT THE SERVICES. FOR EXAMPLE, WE DON’T MAKE ANY COMMITMENTS ABOUT THE CONTENT WITHIN THE SERVICES, THE SPECIFIC FUNCTION OF THE SERVICES, OR THEIR RELIABILITY, AVAILABILITY, OR ABILITY TO MEET YOUR NEEDS. WE PROVIDE THE SERVICES “AS IS”.
  - slurgfest 14y ago
    Of course this is standard CYA legal boilerplate and from the perspective of most users, it might as well be posted behind the refrigerator. If they put that right on the front page in big letters, replacing the current brags about how awesome it is and how it makes your life easier, then that would filter out most of the users who are clueless enough to get in serious trouble this way. Like big nasty warning messages on cigarettes. Of course that's not helpful to Google, but if Google can't be expected to look out for public interests at all then it isn't anyone else's business to look out for Google's either.
    - bmelton 14y ago
      That argument assumes that Google email is crap. It isn't, it is the best email client I've used (online or off), and they have every right to be proud of it. Does it break sometimes? Sure. What doesn't? Does that make it a smelly pile of crap? I don't think it does, and I don't think most people would agree that it is. Gmail is a really awesome service that doesn't have the best support. Period. If people can't be bothered to look at the terms, or if they have greater expectations of the service than they should well, that's on them. I don't think circumstances are so dire that they should plaster "Really, we suck" on their homepage, especially as they're better than all their competition that I've seen.

by bmelton 14y ago

thinkdevcode 14y ago

Your rake analogy is not sound. Ok so Google gives Gmail for free - as in you don't need to pay for it. But is it really "free"? No. They parse your emails so they know what you are buying/selling, who you are talking to, what sites you have a membership on, etc. They also use Gmail to display ads (based off of the things they learned from your emails) to make money off of you. They probably do other things i'm not even thinking of right now. So is it really free? Not at all. Is it a great source of information about you (to then be used by them to target ads at you)? Absolutely. They should be providing support for it. I don't know what that support should look like (be it a call center, forums, etc), but I definitely think that if I give Google permission to snoop through my personal email so they can build better ads for me (which is how they make the majority of their money) I expect some damn support.

bmelton 14y ago
Since that shoe had to drop, you could also point out that they DO provide support. There are google groups, message boards, support forums, HowTos. There's even Prioritized phone support that you can apparently sign up for.[1] It's not as though they hand you the source code and a note saying "Good luck." [1] - http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1752770 http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&a...
- slurgfest 14y ago
  The source code would be more helpful, since a thousand companies would already be competing for the privilege to provide basic support to individual users.
  - bmelton 14y ago
    By that same argument, you'd think that companies providing a gmail-like service + support would be making piles and piles of money. Are there any? (Not snark, I genuinely don't know of any.)

theretodivert 14y ago

Comparing email, adsense, etc. to rakes is flawed. (Please, don't persuade me otherwise.) I agree that the gmail economic model might not be feasible if support costs were included. But I don't know that numbers so my agreement is not important. If 99% of users have no problem with google's services currently then, X% have no problem with google's services in the future. I'm not sure how to solve for X.

bmelton 14y ago
I don't necessarily disagree, but the assumption that not providing support on a free service is evil is the more flawed idea, I think. Also, as I recently discovered, Google does have a for-pay phone support service for Gmail users, as well as all the other forms of support they offer in the form of message board, how tos, google groups, etc.

slurgfest 14y ago

People depend heavily on these services. Google does not discourage them. I would love it if the front page of gmail.com read like: "EASY COME, EASY GO Gmail is a quick and dirty email service for people who don't really need reliable access. Please do not bother signing up unless it does not matter whether you lose the address and all your email." I think that would begin to resolve the problem being highlighted here for sure.

bmelton 14y ago
Something like this? From their terms. OTHER THAN AS EXPRESSLY SET OUT IN THESE TERMS OR ADDITIONAL TERMS, NEITHER GOOGLE NOR ITS SUPPLIERS OR DISTRIBUTORS MAKE ANY SPECIFIC PROMISES ABOUT THE SERVICES. FOR EXAMPLE, WE DON’T MAKE ANY COMMITMENTS ABOUT THE CONTENT WITHIN THE SERVICES, THE SPECIFIC FUNCTION OF THE SERVICES, OR THEIR RELIABILITY, AVAILABILITY, OR ABILITY TO MEET YOUR NEEDS. WE PROVIDE THE SERVICES “AS IS”.
- slurgfest 14y ago
  Of course this is standard CYA legal boilerplate and from the perspective of most users, it might as well be posted behind the refrigerator. If they put that right on the front page in big letters, replacing the current brags about how awesome it is and how it makes your life easier, then that would filter out most of the users who are clueless enough to get in serious trouble this way. Like big nasty warning messages on cigarettes. Of course that's not helpful to Google, but if Google can't be expected to look out for public interests at all then it isn't anyone else's business to look out for Google's either.
  - bmelton 14y ago
    That argument assumes that Google email is crap. It isn't, it is the best email client I've used (online or off), and they have every right to be proud of it. Does it break sometimes? Sure. What doesn't? Does that make it a smelly pile of crap? I don't think it does, and I don't think most people would agree that it is. Gmail is a really awesome service that doesn't have the best support. Period. If people can't be bothered to look at the terms, or if they have greater expectations of the service than they should well, that's on them. I don't think circumstances are so dire that they should plaster "Really, we suck" on their homepage, especially as they're better than all their competition that I've seen.