I get that they can't profitably provide any kind of support for, say, Google Groups. As we like to say around here, if you don't pay them, then you're the product and you can't expect good service. But once they start moving into markets where you pay them money, the bar is higher. In this case, I'm the customer and their support is by far the worst customer experience of my life. Worse than the time a US Airways stewardess took my carry-on bag off the plane before take-off without telling me.
If you click on each sub-forum, you can see from the official response icon column, on the right. That most of the threads do get an answer. That's far from non-existent. I think their big failure here, has been to poorly communicate how people can get help, most don't know about the forums.
Could you elaborate on this please?
Also: http://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/gmail/jCukq7...
It's pretty easy to reproduce. Create a filter for your emails, any filter at all. In the rules section, have the filter forward to a forwarding address. Now receive an email that matches the filter, and watch the forwarding not work.
How are they flagship products? Their flagship profit maker is ads and I hear their support for advertizers is top notch.
I doubt Gmail makes enough off its ads to justify its costs, I think its value is more in getting people to sign in to Google so that if you search for something at work, ads related to it are shown at home etc.