[amadeuspagel]

People act as if there are two companies (Google and Apple) and two business models (ads and selling devices). In fact Google is perfectly capable of charging a subscription in a context where ads don't make sense, like Drive, or even as an alternative, like Youtube Premium. Many people would pay a subscription for an assistant that's actually good, and of course having such an assistant integrated with email and calendar would be extremely valuable.

[acdha]

Google does have non-ad revenue but it doesn’t seem to be enough to affect the culture: Drive customers get the same level of support as ad-supported search users. I’d like that to change but having used GCP I’m not sure that can happen before they have a better CEO.

[amadeuspagel]

How does Drive customer support compare to Dropbox?

[SXX]

Imagine you lose access to your account, with what company do you think have better chances recovering it?

Now imagine you get some very bad data loss bug affecting just your company account. What chances are there you will ever have your problem looked at by Google? I totally believe it's 0% unless you get to HN frontpage.

It's not like Dropbox have best support ever, but I totally believe that getting a living human to look at your problem would be so much easier with them. With Google it's just impossible.