How to become an unpaid technical support worker for Google

http://www.google.com/get/topcontributor/watch/index.html

by robmarkg • 11 years ago

121 58 11 years ago

msoad• 11 years ago

People do anything for points on StackOverflow. It's pretty much the same thing

benten102• 11 years ago

Exactly. Is it me or has there been a noticeable increase in Google gate-brigade posting on HN recently? Things like these, very integral part of the existing internet framework are used for pointless 'big scary Google, Google is the new Microsoft ' imagery. Anyone with data care to do a sentiment analysis/ vote-brigading analysis?

rc4algorithm3• 11 years ago

In this instance, people are angry about the fact that Google makes a ton of money from these services but feels no obligation to provide support for them.

More generally, welcome to the new normal. The money-spewing circleparty is fizzling out, thankfully. People increasingly feel safe and confident in challenging the morality and societal value of these corporations. Blasé compliance is no longer expected in tech and many of us (those of us that upvote these things) are working to keep it that way.

Google is big, scary, and the new Microsoft, whether or not that's fiscally or professionally convenient for you.

sigsergv• 11 years ago

Except SO forums contain much more valuable information than official google resources. Also UI of google groups so awful. And google support just a myth, I've never seen any who got any response from them, only a few mentions in internet.

frozenport• 11 years ago

Not sure why you are being downvoted, while I own much of my career to SO for the transfer of esoteric computer knowledge to the public domain, official Google resources haven't done much for me.

Indeed, most of the useful information about Google tools come from SO!

NeutronBoy• 11 years ago

'What do you mean, you posted constructive feedback on that startup idea on HN for free?! You should be getting paid a consulting fee for that service!'

pmelendez• 11 years ago

Maybe it's just personal but when I respond a question in SO I feel I am giving back to the community... This feels more like giving it to Google.

Google already monetize their service by making me see ads(which is fair). SO monetize their service by showing me employment opportunities (which to me is better). Google model doesn't need the community to work... The entire SO model is a paying forward knowledge transfer.

So... At least to they it is not the same thing.

wodenokoto2• 11 years ago

But it is not different. They both show ads, and neither would make any money unless the ads had benefit to a significant amount of users.

The only thing SO has done different is better branding towards top contributors, and judging from your post they've done it by targeting ads towards the top contributors.

jfoster2• 11 years ago

StackOverflow is an economy, though. You can spend your points (question bounties), the points serve as an indication of your expertise (eg. to potential employers), and having more points leads to "privileges" on the site. (eg. 200 points => reduced ads)

For the time being, at least, Google's Top Contributor program doesn't seem to offer any practical benefits.

pm24601• 11 years ago

Maybe -- but Google is big and profitable that is asking for free labor.

testingonprod• 11 years ago

Wow.....just wow.

The "benefits of becoming a top contributor" video made me want to bash my head into a wall.

benten102• 11 years ago

My college professor used to (still does I bet) proudly put the stack overflow 25karma point sticker and a letter of thanks from the admins on the door to his office. And this was a man with tenure etcetera.

Spivak• 11 years ago

It's entirely possible that the support he received from others outweighed the time he put in supporting others. I know for sure that's the case for me.

jeo12342• 11 years ago

You could almost see them starting to think 'Oh shit. Someone is getting screwed here, and I'm pretty sure it's not Google.'

Geojim• 11 years ago

How a paid PR worker justifies their job at Google...

gmisra• 11 years ago

One of the most beautiful things about the internet is that it enables platforms for individuals to create value and then receive no share of that value.

We see much lamenting about lack of innovation in "business plans" around here, and yet we have an historic opportunity to examine the relationship between value creation and compensation. Why is the Etsy IPO plan so exceptional? Why do so menu community members of instagram, reddit, etc end-up feeling betrayed by the services they helped create?

bduerst• 11 years ago

Or Stackoverflow? They are monetizing free support from thousands of developers, and it's arguably made the internet a better place.

chaostheory• 11 years ago

yes especially when you know that there could have been worse companies like experts exchange

ddingus5• 11 years ago

Yes, it has.

However, it's a bit more subtle than that. Yes, Stackoverflow is making some money, but everyone who contributes gets a few things out of it too:

1. They get the use value of the overall result. This is a non-trivial value. Linux operates under similar dynamics. A lot of "free" code was written, and it was written to improve on the use value in the body of code they found at the time.

Anyone finding Stackoverflow sees a lot of use value and they may well see improving on it in a similar way.

2. Reputation. I like to think of this as "feed the net and the net feeds you." Back in the USENET days, I was very highly active on SGI computers. Sometimes I wondered about the overall value of that. Then I got stuck on some painful Oracle installation issue. All I had to do was ask, and within an hour I got a nice script mailed to me along with a thanks for all the filesystem / disk questions I sorted out for people. (thanks Jerry)

Given the dollars in play at the time, that script was worth a ton!

3. Network, similar to reputation. My many interactions on the net has often resulted in knowing people who I could help or get help from or start projects with.

Clearly, this all must be balanced and weighed by everyone involved. People who do too much might seem over exploited or suffer opportunity costs of various kinds. And we all see what is worth what a little differently too.

But, it's not exactly free. There is value exchanged and accumulated. Making sure that happens is worth something. Maybe it's worth about what Stackoverflow is taking in.

USENET worked, until it didn't. And when it didn't, it all went down hard. Huge value lost. Maybe that won't happen this time, and frankly I think that's worth a profit to somebody because the use value is high enough to be painful should it go missing.

gargarplex• 11 years ago

It gives lonely people a chance to build professional credibility. Why the hate? Is it really that different from a software company requiring you to learn the latest technologies in your free time?

rc4algorithm3• 11 years ago

Because they have the money to pay support staff but choose not to.

Your example is irrelevant because that's part of a paid career, not free labor farmed with manipulative YouTube videos.

jakobegger2• 11 years ago

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.

sahaj• 11 years ago

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

jakobegger2• 11 years ago

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)

adam-f• 11 years ago

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

Zathman• 11 years ago

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.

jfoster2• 11 years ago

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)

itaysk• 11 years ago

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

shalmanese• 11 years ago

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• 11 years ago

Or:

1. Be Taylor Swift

2. Write blog post

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

MichaelCrawford• 11 years ago

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.

gk1• 11 years ago

Reminds me of a SaaS company (I won't name) solved the problem of "too much support time wasted on non-enterprise clients" by funneling all non-enterprise support questions to a community forum and encouraging contributors to answer those questions.

I answered dozens of questions for many days, thinking it will help build credibility (as suggested by another commenter). Then I realized I'm just volunteering as level 1 support, and decided it's not worth it.

mickle00• 11 years ago

if they sold beer it might be named ales-force? :)

jschwartzi• 11 years ago

There are semiconductor companies that do this with their software offerings. Their level 1 support always asks you if you've posted in their community forum.

mlamat• 11 years ago

I wish we would get slavery back. At least they got some food.

bbcbasic• 11 years ago

Yeah it would be awesome, especially if we make the white people slaves, just to mix it up a bit.

tracker13• 11 years ago

I know this is heading OT, but there have been plenty of white slaves throughout history, even in the U.S. For that matter, look at how Chinese, Japanese and Irish immigrants were treated.

I also am not sure that having a class of people in this country that can't afford to raise a family on a single income while working 40+ hours a week is so much different than slavery.

In this case, I don't fault google for trying, I just think their approach is probably wrong, and you really don't see enough googlers (paid employees) respond to any of the threads you happen across.

nailer• 11 years ago

This is pretty similar to the Microsoft 'MVP' program. Perhaps people might start listing their Top Contributor status as a badge of honour online?

wodenokoto2• 11 years ago

I thought people already put their SO points on CV's

guyzero• 11 years ago

Microsoft has had their MVP program for over 20 years! https://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/overview.aspx

"Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals, or MVPs are exceptional community leaders who actively share their high-quality, real-world deep technical expertise with the community and with Microsoft. They are committed to helping others get the most out of their experience with Microsoft products and technologies."

These people are going to exist whether there's a program or not, so why not create a program to recognize them?

sergiotapia• 11 years ago

Except most MVP share technical programming related articles. Not much different than sharing knowledge on your blog. At least you get prestige with Microsoft's program. Seeing Microsoft MVP on a resume is a good boost.

CurtMonash• 11 years ago

It's somewhat ironic to have a thread decrying unpaid community contributions appear on Hacker News (or any other forum).

jeo12342• 11 years ago

Not really. Hacker News is not a profit center for YC. Last time I checked Google is running gmail in order to make money (nothing wrong with that). But if Google is getting paid it seems a little silly for people to give up their time and skills to Google and getting nothing (useful) in return.

erikpukinskis• 11 years ago

For what it's worth, if you can show you were proving real value and not primarily getting just entertaintainment/training from Google, you could work this way for a period and sue Google for back wages. The courts in the U.S./California generally take minimum wages very seriously and case law has defined the exceptions quite narrowly. Even non-profits have been successfully sued for wages for "volunteer" labor.

It's also true basically all unpaid internships are illegal and interns can easily sue for back wages, FWIW.

robmarkg• 11 years ago

Thank you for the comments everyone. Here is the post I wrote before I posted this https://goo.gl/hA6VgA

How to become an unpaid technical support worker for Google

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