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Plenty of reports of people getting locked out of their Workspace accounts. Google even occasionally burns developers they have deals and working relationships

Plenty of reports of people getting locked out of their Workspace accounts. Google even occasionally burns developers they have deals and working relationships with. Just don't use any Google services. Not free, not paid (why would you send them money???!?!). Not for personal stuff, not for work projects. Not for throwaway data, not for important data.

Spooky23 1y ago
The Google rage on HN is immature. That's a feature of any SaaS. Adobe frequently shuts down ETLA customers due their own invoice processing failures. I can think of three significant government subdivisions that were unable to access any M365 service for 1-10 days as a result of a reseller change. The real lesson here is that you need to understand the failure domains of the technology your business depends on. Your business is as good as the contracts you rely on. We're relatively good at preparing for IT failure, but not so much the other stuff. For small businesses, key revenue generation could be stopped by an employee doing something dumb with a corporate card.
- praestigiare 1y ago
  The real lesson here is that almost all modern SaaS applications have massively under invested in customer support in order to appear more profitable or sustainable than they really are. One of the major factors behind LLM development is trying to solve this problem before the house of cards falls down. Companies were enticed by the recurring revenue of SaaS, but don't want to pay for the level of support required when you are responsible for all your customers data as well as their access to the service.
- aitchnyu 1y ago
  Why would a government division (or any 20-person office) pay a reseller?
  - crazygringo 1y ago
    Because government purchases go through the procurement office which is using an authorized reseller under a larger government contract. Resellers handle a bunch of compliance paperwork necessary for the government, and are also contracted for migration and support needs.
ajross 1y ago
> Plenty of reports of people getting locked out of their Workspace accounts None substantiating the "most AI-kafkaesque process imaginable to regain access" upthread though. I mean, I don't know what you're citing specifically, but yes, obviously: business relationships like everything else get tangled up sometimes. People's electricity gets shut off incorrectly, people's Doordash orders arrive with the wrong stuff, phone bills arrive without the promised discounts; everything sucks, kinda. But if you're paying the solution is to call your support contact and have them sort it out. And that works at Google the same way it does everywhere else.

Spooky23 1y ago

The Google rage on HN is immature. That's a feature of any SaaS. Adobe frequently shuts down ETLA customers due their own invoice processing failures. I can think of three significant government subdivisions that were unable to access any M365 service for 1-10 days as a result of a reseller change. The real lesson here is that you need to understand the failure domains of the technology your business depends on. Your business is as good as the contracts you rely on. We're relatively good at preparing for IT failure, but not so much the other stuff. For small businesses, key revenue generation could be stopped by an employee doing something dumb with a corporate card.

praestigiare 1y ago
The real lesson here is that almost all modern SaaS applications have massively under invested in customer support in order to appear more profitable or sustainable than they really are. One of the major factors behind LLM development is trying to solve this problem before the house of cards falls down. Companies were enticed by the recurring revenue of SaaS, but don't want to pay for the level of support required when you are responsible for all your customers data as well as their access to the service.
aitchnyu 1y ago
Why would a government division (or any 20-person office) pay a reseller?
- crazygringo 1y ago
  Because government purchases go through the procurement office which is using an authorized reseller under a larger government contract. Resellers handle a bunch of compliance paperwork necessary for the government, and are also contracted for migration and support needs.

ajross 1y ago

> Plenty of reports of people getting locked out of their Workspace accounts None substantiating the "most AI-kafkaesque process imaginable to regain access" upthread though. I mean, I don't know what you're citing specifically, but yes, obviously: business relationships like everything else get tangled up sometimes. People's electricity gets shut off incorrectly, people's Doordash orders arrive with the wrong stuff, phone bills arrive without the promised discounts; everything sucks, kinda. But if you're paying the solution is to call your support contact and have them sort it out. And that works at Google the same way it does everywhere else.