Google's fundamental relationship with users is statistical, and I think it shows. They're very good at optimizing metrics; their search, for example has remained the leader 20+ years on. In that world, if you lose a few users or give a bad experience, well, there are plenty more where those came from, and the ones who leave will often come back.
I think they mistakenly bring that attitude to their consumer businesses, though. The stories of bad customer experiences are legion. Like you, I've learned that I can't really trust them. Which is true of all companies, of course, but it's different with Google. Amazon is even more rapacious, but I trust them to be long-term greedy, to not shoot themselves in the foot with some short-sighted action. For all their flaws, they understand that customer relationships have long-term value.
This is true per "equivalent" unit of generic computing, but some older instance types have gone up in price (presumably to encourage people to migrate their stuff onto newer hardware).
This is completely reasonable - but a pain when you have a box that works perfectly and you have to upgrade the software to cope with a new hypervisor driver/layer.
One of the things I really like about Hetzner is that they auction off the older dedicated servers for cheaper. It should make economic sense to do the right thing.
And maybe all their metrics say that in the grand scheme of things, shooting some customers in the foot is the better strategy compared to not shooting them in the foot. Sometimes via deliberate price hikes, sometimes via shoddy support channels and discontinued products.
The big questions are whether their metrics factor in customers who avoid google's products to begin with, knowing they might end up getting shot in the foot, or whether they have a moral obligation to not shoot their customers even if they can make more money that way.
enterprise and consumer markets are so different. The same management leading on both fronts is unheard of and very unlikely at larger orgs.
At Google's scale they are optimized and oriented for the consumer market with their horrendous pricing strategies, poor customer service, negligent backward compatibility and pseudo-monopolistic products and offerings.
As a consumer, I can live with the lack of trust. From a business perspective I cannot live with that.
I mean, at a minimum, their habit of using customer data from their platform businesses to inform development of their own competing products is pretty sketchy.
That's SOP in retail though. Walmart/Target/Home Depot/Best Buy/Whole Wallet, knows exactly what sells and use that to inform their own brands. And they kind of need to be tracking and analyzing those things in order to do their job.
Any store that uses a rewards, loyalty card or phone number when you checkout does the same. I'm not sure why Amazon is the bad guy when grocery stores have been distributing private brands of mainstream products and shopper loyalty has been used to optimize revenue streams. Amazon does it on a bigger scale, not sure the scale makes it right or wrong though.
Your theory is that if other large companies do something, it must be morally acceptable?
Even if that's true, which I'm not persuaded of, Amazon's enormous market power makes a big difference. As a consumer, I don't want Amazon to "optimize revenue streams" when that reduces the reward to market participants to be innovative and deliver high quality.
> Your theory is that if other large companies do something, it must be morally acceptable
You left something out, "as long as it doesn't effect me (yet), and large companies do it, it must be morally acceptable." I don't know why we defend them. Without Google we still go on. Without us, or support for their practices, they dramatically change or they disappear.
One pretty obvious way is how they treat workers. Despite being a customer for more than 20 years, this year I canceled my Amazon Prime membership and now avoid using them. If you're unfamiliar, you can find an ocean of material by googling "Amazon labor exploitation".
I think they mistakenly bring that attitude to their consumer businesses, though. The stories of bad customer experiences are legion. Like you, I've learned that I can't really trust them. Which is true of all companies, of course, but it's different with Google. Amazon is even more rapacious, but I trust them to be long-term greedy, to not shoot themselves in the foot with some short-sighted action. For all their flaws, they understand that customer relationships have long-term value.