What is wild to me is that Google has developed such a reputation for being completely unreachable for real support, that in an article like this, it only speaks of the cell phone carrier's fault. It doesn't even bothering mentioning Google!
It is simply taken for granted that if you lose access to your Google account, you are completely out of luck because there is simply no way to reach anyone there who will be able to help you.
There was an HN thread within the last few days that talked about this very thing. [1]
Google, believe it or not, is a real company with real people who work there. Those people build the products and market to the end user that they can entrust their lifetime of photos to Google's custody, but when something goes wrong, there is often nothing that can be done. Why? Because those same humans have made it so that they cannot be reached, do not have to care about your problems, and do not have to ever deal with any level of accountability for the real human distress they have caused by building systems in a way that permits a user to be locked out without recourse.
I've been using Google Photos to store all my photos since 2011. The thought of losing everything gives me chills. Only recently I did a first backup of the files via Google Takeout.
How many dozens of stories like this do you need to read before realizing that you always need a local copy of everything valuable you store in the cloud?
> Google, believe it or not, is a real company with real people who work there. Those people build the products and market to the end user that they can entrust their lifetime of photos to Google's custody, but when something goes wrong, there is often nothing that can be done. Why?
There is no sense of obligation to users who use your product for free. It's easy to include a line in the Terms & Conditions that says, "You are using our product for free. Therefore, we are not responsible for anything that happens to your data."
> Because those same humans have made it so that they cannot be reached, do not have to care about your problems, and do not have to ever deal with any level of accountability for the real human distress they have caused by building systems in a way that permits a user to be locked out without recourse.
As a former Googler: no, it's because Google policy forbids employees from helping others, if it's not going through proper customer support channels. For privacy and privacy liability reasons. Yeah, it sucks when a friend asks you to look into something and the only thing you can do without risk getting fired is saying "talk to customer support."
>> Because those same humans have made it so that they cannot be reached, do not have to care about your problems, and do not have to ever deal with any level of accountability for the real human distress they have caused by building systems in a way that permits a user to be locked out without recourse.
> As a former Googler: no, it's because Google policy forbids employees from helping others
Thanks for confirming GP's point - Google makes it so the people that actually make stuff that's customer facing never have to face the customer when their half-baked Silicon Valley Syndrome ideas blow up in the customer's face because not everyone understands everything about every technology they use.
There is one exception to the "no helping" rule - if the person needing help has somewhere over 1 million followers or company has a revenue in the hundreds of millions then it's all hands on deck to help the influencer.
I feel for the victim and Google’s continued inability to provide customer service. Maybe the media attention will escalate this to someone who can fix it.
As an aside, I am relieved to see this is from the UK. Whenever sim swap stories end up on HN there are always comments about how it’s due to some unique incompetence of US-based cell service providers.
What is wild to me is that Google has developed such a reputation for being completely unreachable for real support, that in an article like this, it only speaks of the cell phone carrier's fault. It doesn't even bothering mentioning Google!
It is simply taken for granted that if you lose access to your Google account, you are completely out of luck because there is simply no way to reach anyone there who will be able to help you.
There was an HN thread within the last few days that talked about this very thing. [1]
Google, believe it or not, is a real company with real people who work there. Those people build the products and market to the end user that they can entrust their lifetime of photos to Google's custody, but when something goes wrong, there is often nothing that can be done. Why? Because those same humans have made it so that they cannot be reached, do not have to care about your problems, and do not have to ever deal with any level of accountability for the real human distress they have caused by building systems in a way that permits a user to be locked out without recourse.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41891694
I've been using Google Photos to store all my photos since 2011. The thought of losing everything gives me chills. Only recently I did a first backup of the files via Google Takeout.
How many dozens of stories like this do you need to read before realizing that you always need a local copy of everything valuable you store in the cloud?
You are correct, and I deserve the lesson. I'll do as sibling said and schedule it.
Google Takeout can also run on a schedule. You can do a monthly backup and they will email you when it's ready.
> Google, believe it or not, is a real company with real people who work there. Those people build the products and market to the end user that they can entrust their lifetime of photos to Google's custody, but when something goes wrong, there is often nothing that can be done. Why?
There is no sense of obligation to users who use your product for free. It's easy to include a line in the Terms & Conditions that says, "You are using our product for free. Therefore, we are not responsible for anything that happens to your data."
> Because those same humans have made it so that they cannot be reached, do not have to care about your problems, and do not have to ever deal with any level of accountability for the real human distress they have caused by building systems in a way that permits a user to be locked out without recourse.
As a former Googler: no, it's because Google policy forbids employees from helping others, if it's not going through proper customer support channels. For privacy and privacy liability reasons. Yeah, it sucks when a friend asks you to look into something and the only thing you can do without risk getting fired is saying "talk to customer support."
>> Because those same humans have made it so that they cannot be reached, do not have to care about your problems, and do not have to ever deal with any level of accountability for the real human distress they have caused by building systems in a way that permits a user to be locked out without recourse.
> As a former Googler: no, it's because Google policy forbids employees from helping others
Thanks for confirming GP's point - Google makes it so the people that actually make stuff that's customer facing never have to face the customer when their half-baked Silicon Valley Syndrome ideas blow up in the customer's face because not everyone understands everything about every technology they use.
There is one exception to the "no helping" rule - if the person needing help has somewhere over 1 million followers or company has a revenue in the hundreds of millions then it's all hands on deck to help the influencer.
And the primary role of Google "customer support" is to act as a firewall, not to help people. Glad you've moved on from such a loathsome company.
"Google policy" is created by real humans who have the power to stop this nonsense.
I feel for the victim and Google’s continued inability to provide customer service. Maybe the media attention will escalate this to someone who can fix it.
As an aside, I am relieved to see this is from the UK. Whenever sim swap stories end up on HN there are always comments about how it’s due to some unique incompetence of US-based cell service providers.
FYI the solution in this case is to contact a Google employee you know. They can vouch for you and there is a procedure to recover the account.