[danilocampos]

But, see, the trouble here is that these users aren't customers. They're product sold to advertisers.

When I was spending a few million a year on AdWords, guess who had a direct line to Google, both via email and on the phone? I could talk to those guys whenever I wanted about campaigns, get advice on improving my keyword mix, budgeting strategies, any of that stuff.

From this business' point of view, individuals just don't matter. You could piss off hundreds or thousands of them and not make any dent on the bottom line, since they're not the ones who put money into Google's pockets and they're easily replaced.

The incentives are lined up in ways that, for the most part, work fine, but if you expect Google to care about you at the scale they operate, with the business mix they currently enjoy, you'd better be on the advertiser side of the equation.

[palish]

The world would be a better place if if companies focused on "people", and not on "money".

Of course that's unrealistic. But I don't care. I grew up believing in Star-Trek-style society. You know... "Social problems are gone; people are free to devote themselves to improving themselves; etc". I honestly believed that humanity would someday achieve this.

I used to believe most people were inherently good, and that they are naturally adverse to doing unethical things, and that if they did something unethical by accident, then they would go out of their way to fix it, even if they weren't obligated to. Because it's the right thing to do.

Needless to say, Real Life came as a nasty surprise.

You're a bad person for not caring about That One Guy Who You Deleted 7 Years Of His Life. But hey, our capitalistic society encourages not caring, so it must be okay, right?

[danilocampos]

There's less conflict between people and profits than you might think.

First, I share your idealism. Being good to people, and humanity as a whole, is the most important thing we can do in our brief existence.

What's happened, though, is that perverse incentives that reward short-term thinking at the expense of long-term results have become the norm in large businesses.

Ship product X before it's ready because the Street wants to see some action before the end of the quarter – even though in an unfinished state, you'll destroy the product's reputation. (most people in Tablet land)

Fire an experienced sales force because they are expensive. The money saved will look great in our financial reporting – even though the resulting drop in customer service will gut our profitability for years to come. (Home Depot, Circuit City)

Adopt rigid policies around customer service. Don't empower front-line people to make things right. That might cost money – even though the lost goodwill will mean that customers will abandon the business and flock to better alternatives. (most retail chains, airlines)

But the good news is that there are companies who make a lot of money just by kind of being nice to people, creating a fair balance of profit for the company and value for the customer.

Zappos spends a shitload of money on phone support. It's a marketing expense. So everyone loves shopping at Zappos after awhile.

Amazon will disable their Prime $3.99 one-click shipping button if they've noticed that the free option has the same delivery estimate. So you can always feel safe shopping there.

Apple Stores are pretty flexible with return/exchange/warranty rules. Be polite, explain what you need, they'll often bend policy or waive repair fees. From a product perspective, Apple sits on products for years and kills them if they can't deliver a minimum level of user experience quality. So when they launch something new, they have lines out the door with people desperate to buy.

Whole Foods empowers their store managers to do the right thing – whatever that looks like for a given situation or market. So if the power goes out in the middle of a busy day, everyone goes home with free food so they can get on with life.

So as long as you're capable of seeing past the next three weeks, you can make money and be good to people. Which is what you need if you want to pay your employees' rent. Corporations are capable of doing a lot of good. But they've been hijacked by unimaginative, unproductive Wall Street morons who would kill a school bus full of children if it meant a higher return on the next five minutes of trading.

[OstiaAntica]

I'd go further-- corporations are an amazing structure for harnessing human creative power, and also for distributing those dividends across society.

But our capital markets are screwed up, and corporate governance laws are a mess, leading to less accountability and mismatched incentives.

http://www.icahnreport.com/report/2008/06/corporate-democ.ht...

[wallawe]

I sympathize with your idealistic sort of thinking but it is unreasonable. Corporations (which is what Google is) are responsible to shareholders. The purpose of a corporation by definition is to maximize the bottom line for the shareholder. It has nothing to do with being good to people. The only way that this guy's problem will get solved is if enough people catch wind of his situation that it affects the fairly popular status of the Google brand. I use a lot of their services myself and would be just as infuriated if this happened to me, but you have to keep in mind what the purpose of Google is essentially. Now, if you want to talk about the down/upside of our capitalistic society and corporate greed that is another conversation to be had.

[Joeri]

"The purpose of a corporation by definition is to maximize the bottom line for the shareholder."

No, the purpose of a corporation is to efficiently organize work.

Fundamentally, corporations, and the entire economic system, exist for only one purpose: to create a better human society. Profit is the incentive to get them to work for the greater good, but it's not the end-goal. We've temporarily lost sight of that, but sooner or later we're going to have to redefine corporations so we can keep the good (competitive drive), and discard the bad (profit at the expense of humanity).

Personally, I would be very interested to see minimum holding times for shares (incentivizing long-term behavior), and maximum lifetimes for corporate personhood (corporations should all die at some point, just like other people).

[wallawe]

This is simply the definition I was given in business school. If you type in "purpose of a corporation" on Google, this is what you will get (which is comedically ironic in this situation).

"Efficiently organizing work" is what must be done as a by product or failure is ensured in this survival of the fittest capitalistic system.

I agree that the ethics are not what they should be in the corporate culture today, but that doesn't change the nature nor the purpose and definition of corporation.

[pyre]

  > The purpose of a corporation by definition is to 
  > maximize the bottom line for the shareholder

That is a definition without qualification. What is the bottom line for the shareholder? The stock price tomorrow? The stock price in 10 years? The dividends paid out this year? The dividends paid over the next decade?

If I push up the stock price $100 over 2 years, but in the process destroy the brand in a way that causes the business to drop in value and eventually close over the next 3 years, have I increased shareholder value?

What if I cut the customer-service budget, saving money and causing customers to hate the company? What happens when an incumbent shows up in the market, and steals away most of my customer base? Did that create shareholder value?

Reciting "money++ is the only thing that matters" as the definition of a corporation is brain-dead.

[wallawe]

"Reciting "money++ is the only thing that matters" as the definition of a corporation is brain-dead"

That wasn't my intention, and my definition was ambiguous, you are right. I wrote that off the top of my head. To be more accurate, it is "to maximize shareholder value."

This includes building a solid brand name and maintaining a good reputation via ethical practices.

[palish]

I believe the idea of "publicly-held companies" is a net negative for humanity. It encourages immoral behavior.

Obviously my thoughts are unreasonable. I wish the world were unreasonable. Because then people might empathize with each other to an unreasonable degree, resulting in far less grief and hate within our microscopic timeline of our universe.

[firemanx]

I have to disagree with you. "Publicly-held companies" don't encourage immoral behavior. People encourage immoral behavior. I know that some folks like to think of people as "basically good", but I don't think history has held that out. Humanity has proven time after time that regardless of the social structure or organization, their tendency for immoral behavior pervades each one.

"We did it for the shareholders" may be a unique excuse in the realm of organizations, but governments, churches, companies, school boards, communes, etc all suffer from problems like these. The difference with public companies is that folks can vote with their dollars, or in an adequately free economy, can band together and compete.

[pnathan]

A review of government and society prior to about 1600 (ie, the bulk of human history) does not suggest that people are inherently very nice.

A notable example is Ivan the Terrible and his society.

[wallawe]

What is the answer to 99 out of 100 questions? Money.

It is not the pubicly-held companies. It is the power of money to control, persuade, influence, or even empower.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. It is true that money doesn't buy happiness but even truer that not having money can cause unhappiness via stress among other things.

The problem is what people who have money decide to do with it and how they choose to influence the larger whole. Many of the people who have put their entire intellect towards making money, have desired to do so for the wrong reasons and therefore use it in a net negative way as you have put it.

I guess what I am saying, is that it falls on the individual to make the right decision, and not corporations, governments or societies as a whole.

[bzbarsky]

> The purpose of a corporation by definition is to maximize > the bottom line for the shareholder.

No, the purpose is whatever the corporate charter says. It's just that most of those are pretty vague, and for a publicly held corporation it's been held that within the bounds of the charter there is a duty to maximize shareholder value (whatever that means). For privately held corporations, of course, the private holders just call the shots.

But back to charters... you may be interested in the fact that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-benefit_corporation exist and distinctly do NOT maximize shareholder value. Also, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation#Mutual_benefit_corp.... And in recent years there has been a movement to create charters that look just like your typical public corporation charter but impose certain restrictions on what the corporation is or is not allowed to do in the process of making money. Several states issue such charters at this point. Again, the corporation is responsible to shareholders but within the bounds of the charter. Which shareholders should read before investing, of course; that's basic due diligence.

[forgottenpaswrd]

"The purpose of a corporation by definition is to maximize the bottom line for the shareholder. It has nothing to do with being good to people."

So in your opinion being good to people have NOTHING to do with maximizing the bottom line from the shareholder.

I beg to differ, IMHO the most profitable business are those that provide a very good product or service to their customers(people).

I remember the pre-google days, Altavista that forced you to click 5 buttons to do the same thing you could do with google on "Advanced search", That push pop ups that will flick on the screen with vivid colors and force you to visit their stupid "portals", that sold the three first web results page to the best bidders(so they were crap).

I recall that days every single day I have to visit my old hotmail account because they are not dead. If there were not some company that gave a better service that they do(google) they will come back.

[rahoulb]

The purpose of a corporation is to further the aims of England, under royal charter, and as a reward is allowed to make a profit.

That's how it was in the 1500s.

[Daniel_Newby]

The purpose of a corporation by definition is to maximize the bottom line for the shareholder.

No, the purpose of a corporation is to faithfully carry out the corporate bylaws. There are many corporations that do little for the shareholder's bottom line: private schools, charities, self-styled socially responsible businesses, co-ops, government-run public service companies, profit-neutral public utility companies, and many others.

I sympathize with your idealistic sort of thinking but it is unreasonable.

Google could easily start a service department and run it as a profit center: simply require a massive credit card charge or wire transfer before they will help fix your account. That they do not is an intentional choice.

[clobber]

"Fiduciary duty" is not a good excuse to be unethical.

[Eliezer]

http://lesswrong.com/lw/ux/traditional_capitalist_values/

[caseysoftware]

Even in Star Trek with the ability to replicate nearly anything, they had to introduce money.. gold pressed latinum.

/me puts his geek away

[palish]

Only as a storytelling device. And in Deep Space 9, the Ferengi Nog was willing to spend his entire life savings of Latinum at the request of his friend Jake, just to buy Jake's dad a baseball card, simply to make him happy.

I hope one day I do something like that for someone. Maybe on my deathbed or something.

I don't know; I just wish people were... better people. To each other. I know they never will be, but I'd rather hope for this fantasy than accept grim reality.

[danilocampos]

And as long as we're geeking out, money existed but not in the Federation. So, not for humanity. Outside cultures had it, which made them an interesting foil for a humanity whose abundance taught them to value other things.

[lotharbot]

There's a little bit of ambiguity. Starfleet didn't use money, at least not explicitly, but there were humans who amassed personal fortunes, and other Federation worlds that had market economies. Money was also referenced several times in various Treks [0], sometimes with a character talking about how humans don't have money, and other times with a character talking about selling something, charging for something, or being willing to spend money for something ("I'd give real money if he'd shut up" - McCoy, referencing Chang's Shakespeare quotes, ST VI)

[0] http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Money

[clobber]

"The world would be a better place if if companies focused on "people", and not on "money""

Nah, people are too busy worshiping things like Google+ and the next social network, things which really solve nothing at all.

[DrJokepu]

I keep hearing this argument over and over again but the fact is that when I was using Google AdWords and had problems, I received zero (0) support and response from Google. Nothing. And I was a customer in the "I'm paying money for this" sense of the word.

Obviously this is just anecdotical evidence as the only "data point" I have is my own experience and it's possible that everyone else in the world receives five star support from Google right away. None the less, it made me lose a lot of respect for them and in the end I ended up cancelling my account and asked for a refund (which is automated).

[vaksel]

yeah same here....the thing with Google is that unless you are spending 100K a month, it doesn't really care about you as a customer.

[hn_decay]

"But, see, the trouble here is that these users aren't customers. They're product sold to advertisers."

The whole product/customer thing is a boring bit of sophistry usually used to slander Google.

Google's profitability secret is a very high revenue to employee ratio. When I bought a $600 Nexus One from Google and discovered a problem with fulfilment, the grand total of support Google supplied to me was an automated email response (that itself was a dead end -- no recourse or escalation), and a link to an FAQ.

That's just how Google operates. If they can make a cron job that eliminates the need to supply support for most customers, that's what they do. It is this way whether they benefit from you via your eyeballs, or from your wallet.

[danilocampos]

> That's just how Google operates. If they can make a cron job that eliminates the need to supply support for most customers, that's what they do.

You begin with what seems like disagreement, then prove my point.

A $600 device to be exposed to Google's mobile ads? Here's an email.

A few million dollars a year in ad spend? Here's a whole department of new friends.

Solving problems with AdWords can be done algorithmically. And is – there are lots of little automated touches there, from ad approval to keyword suggestion. But smart humans can give more – resulting in better financial performance for Google.

Code can rarely resolve support issues. But that's all they bothered to do because end users are not a priority. For all the reasons I mentioned.

When it benefits them financially, Google offers support. Otherwise, they don't. You can chalk this up to whatever cultural or business case you'd like.

But the end result is that unless you're pouring money into their pockets, you, as an individual, don't matter to Google. That's not sophistry – that's established fact.

[palish]

You forgot "And that's an immoral way to operate. As individuals, we should try very hard to discourage that mentality. But that's the way the world operates at this time."

Personally, I've given up hope that the world will ever be different. But if there is any hope, it will take the form of: "We will no longer tolerate your impersonal policies and rationalizations". So we should try to speak out against it.

But yeah. People are irrational cows that throw money at anything shiny. So that won't happen, and the world won't change.

Moo.

[icebraining]

The problem is, if Google had to provide real support, would they be able to offer stuff for free¹? Because if not, the alternative is shutting down these services, which is bad for those of us who bother to backup their emails and have their own domains.

Personally, I feel this is a simple matter of personal responsibility. It's free, so you can't expect support. If you're not okay with that, pay someone and ask them for guarantees.

¹ Yes, I know there are other costs, but I don't think their value to Google covers anything similar to real support.

[hn_decay]

So if we discard the polarizing language about customers and products, we get to your point being that the more profitable you are as a customer, the more attention you get?

I don't think that is terribly challenging viewpoint.

[danilocampos]

Perhaps. But the vast disparity between the class of user that an advertiser is versus, well, everyone else, makes the original language both apt and more economical.

There are infinite degrees of nuance everywhere you look. We use language to reduce that complexity. You can call it sophistry as much as you like — the reason it's polarizing is because the reality sucks for 99% of people who need Google's help — they're not treated as customers as most people understand that term. Inconvenient but true.

[ThomPete]

I fail to see how you are addressing the argument made in the previous post.

Google is giving you a service for free because they are selling data about you for money.

In other words if you aren't paying for the product you are the product.

How does that have anything to do with sophistry?

[hn_decay]

Sophistry : "a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning."

Google makes money because they have users, in the same way that a television network makes money because they have viewers. Both are entirely reliant upon their user base, and will desperately trying to optimize and maximize that user base.

If the GP's point was "there is a very low profit / user, and a limited impact by irate customers (at least those who don't shout from the rooftops)" then they are making an accurate statement, and it's actually what I supported -- Google doesn't care whether you're on a "free" or pay program, they'll still try to avoid talking to you.

The bit about products and customers is just completely unnecessary, again, sophistry. Google's product is a mail system and a search engine and a social product, and sometimes users pay for it (I use Apps for Domains), and sometimes advertisers pay for it. Cutifying that into comforting slogans isn't helpful.

[ThomPete]

The majority of googles revenue comes from exactly the fact that they can sell targeted advertising.

Neglecting that is what is unnecessary.

[Andrew_Quentin]

But they sell it to advertisers and the advertisee. They both are the customers of google.

Frankly, I think the problem is that google has no real competition. Google, really is becoming a fine example of why monopoly, regardless of whether it is merit based or otherwise, is bad, for in the end, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[jdunlop]

I have to admit, this whole story gives me pause. I live and breath by my gmail account, and it they decide to deactivate it for no good reason (or refuse to help me after the fact), how can I be expected to use their services with any confidence? Perhaps my planned migration to google+ is on hold...