[a3n]

Google has long since passed the point of critical mass and a self-sustaining reaction. These days an individual publisher needs Google much more than Google needs an individual publisher. So why should Google spend resources on customer care when, as years of HN and other sites' threads demonstrate, it doesn't matter? The individual publisher can be relied on to claw at the rock at his own expense to attempt resolution.

Google is doing very well, and lack of support hasn't harmed them. It's not just that customer care is done algorithmically; my guess is that the meta-decision on whether or how much customer care is needed is also algorithmic.

[cobbzilla]

The funny thing is, for ad networks like Google, the publisher is not the customer. There is no incentive to treat them well. The customer is where the revenue comes from: the advertisers. For Google, publishers are just "supply". And there is a glut of supply.

[a3n]

Ah. Not being a publisher, it hadn't occurred to me that they're a product just like us.

Always follow the money.