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See, you're confused - you actually think you're a customer of these companies.

I'd venture to guess that they do have customer service, but you do t fall in to the customer category. Now if you started a $100,000 'branding campaign' with them- the you'd be a customer.

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I pay for gmail, I pay for drive, I pay for adwords, I pay for google apps, I pay for GCE and play store. (and undoubtedly a plethora of other services I couldn't remember)

I think I fit at least some definition of "customer".

And I'm still not asking for free support, I'd gladly pay Google 2k an hour to get someone to assist me.

You're paying to be a power user, and you're still not a customer in Google's eyes. As the parent said, the only true customers are the advertisers who buy your information and eyeballs from Google.

But I am an advertiser! And surely GCE customers are customers too.

(My GCE spending has been far bigger than a hobby project)

I’m beginning to think that Google is too large to have actual customers, per se, since any group of paying users is still too small for Google to need to pay attention to.

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