[jakobegger]

This is what made me ditch Gmail. After using it for several years, I stumbled across a serious bug that removed all email from my inbox. I tried contacting support, but there was none; all I got were replies from top contributors pointing me to other people with the same issue. It becsme clear that there was no way to escalate the issue or get help from someone who could actually investigate the bug or help restoring my email. Top contributors are not an actual replacement for customer support.

I've since switched to a paid email provider.

[shalmanese]

Just do what everyone else does:

1. Write a blog post about it

2. Get the blog post to the top of Hacker News

3. Get a bunch of people to tweet @Google because of it.

4. Have Google begrudgingly contact you and fix the problem.

I don't know why you insist on making it so complicated.

[nabeelahmed13]

Or:

1. Be Taylor Swift

2. Write blog post

3. Have the company publicly fix the issue for all users in one go.

[_lce0]

(in a matter of hours)

[Zathman]

Google provides paid email (which includes support) under the service of Google Apps for Work. You can call or email an actual Google tech support employee 24/7 for core services when you need help (number will be in the admin panel).

But when you're getting a product for free, especially email (Hotmail/Live Mail, Yahoo, AOL, Gmail, etc) you really can't expect any provider to provide comprehensive one-on-one support as it is rather pricey. So you're right to go to a paid plan somewhere.

[jfoster]

I wonder if the outcome would have been much different if the jakobegger did have Google Apps.

In my experience, a common problem with support is that they lack the knowledge and capabilities to deal with certain types of support requests. At some point, some support requests need to be escalated to the product owners within the organization. Some organizations are simply not prepared for those types of support requests.

Email does seem like a service that should be recoverable, though. If you depend on it heavily enough, you should probably:

(a) Own the domain that emails are going to. (so that if Google stumbles, you can switch providers)

(b) Have full records of all accounts & aliases. (so that you can continue to receive incoming mail following any switch of providers)

(c) Backup all email regularly. (so that you don't lose all existing mail in the event of needing to switch providers)

[itaysk]

I'd argue it's not completely free: http://t.co/zqjf68F0ma

[adam-f]

Perhaps google should open up additional channels of communication for "top contributors" to escalate problems?

[sahaj]

Do you have a link to your post outlining the issue?

[jakobegger]

Here, I found it: https://productforums.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!msg/gmail/BQp...

I seemed to have misremembered: I only got a single reply from a top contributor. The links pointing to other people with the same issue may have been automatic (the website looked different when I originally posted the question)

[MichaelCrawford]

this is why i regard it as a bad thing that no one pays out of picket for software anymore.

last resort from working software was only 9.95 but even so we had unlimited free tech support. that gave us a good reason to keep product quality high.

what we have now are confusing, poorly thought out user interface, code that crashes and no tech support.