[janto]

It depends on how narrowly focused Google's strategy and commitment to reliable income is.

Linearly scaling up on human support agents doesn't look aligned with an AI driven strategy to enable income that is only coming from their advertising services.

From https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/020515/busin...

  Google Services generated $69.4 billion, or about 92% of total revenue, in Q4 FY 2021. Advertising revenue, at $61.2 billion, comprised 88% of the segment's revenue. The segment's revenue is up 31.3% compared to Q4 FY 2020. Google Services posted operating income of $26.0 billion, up 36.3% from the year-ago quarter.

  This figure surpassed Alphabet's total consolidated operating income of $21.9 billion due to operating losses in the other two segments as well as unallocated corporate costs. Google Services is thus the only segment that currently makes positive contributions to Alphabet's overall operating income

So Google Play can only exist in ways where it supports advertising. Sales are trivial in comparison. "Delighting" every app publisher is simply distracting.

[dchftcs]

Various sources indicate that Google play made >10 billion in revenue, much of that being profit: https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/android/254978/google-play-h...

These horror stories would mostly come from publishers that rely on the source of income, from whom the yearly Google play is likely to be at least a few thousands. There's no excuse to not involve a human in a decision as drastic as account termination.

[janto]

Following to the original Reuters article

  The figures include sales of apps, in-app purchase and *app store ads*.

I would also prefer that Google have more tolerable support for publishers (and users), but it looks like those at the helm might be thinking it's irresponsible to see publishers as important customers. The publishers are not the ones providing the vast majority of the revenue - that seems to be advertiser.

The attention economy is addictive for those pushing it as well.