[skinkestek]

> It's a little difference with Facebook and Google, because unlike the other companies you mentioned, users are not the customers of Facebook and Google -- advertisers are.

This is so tiring.

Also, I've been paying Google real money for half a decade or so, so I am definitely their customer.

That said I'm well aware that that doesn't seem to mean anything in Google land and I might be thrown out for anything tomorrow with no explanation and no way to get my account back except complaining in social media.

[samatman]

It's still true on an institutional level, though.

Paying customers at Google are pin money, AdSense is bread and butter.

If there's a conflict, AdSense wins, period. There's a firmly entrenched culture where user accounts are a cost center, to be managed "at scale", that carries over to paying accounts. That attitude shouldn't carry over, of course; nonetheless, it does, as you recognize in your last paragraph.