People do anything for points on StackOverflow. It's pretty much the same thing
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.
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.
Except it is. Most people aren't contributing answers on SO about how to use SO. They are contributing answers about how to use JS or C or PHP or how to solve a particular programming problem. SO did not create JS or C or PHP or any other programming language or framework discussed on SO. Google's program is to get people to support products Google created so that Google doesn't have to support its products itself.
Indeed, most of the useful information about Google tools come from SO!
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.
Google actually does support the free offerings pretty well. They just don't do it on a case by case basis. Anybody who wants that has the option to pay Google to get it.
Otherwise, Google does invest time into making sure it works well for everyone and isn't just letting it all sit out there slowly breaking...
No one expects intensive 24/7 support for free webmail, but Google's balance of profit and support is off. Free-tier users aren't cattle, especially not when you're tracking them.
If you pay Google, their support is much improved.
I don't expect any support for free web mail. And yes, I back mine up, from time to time, or pay for that support.
You may well value things differently, but that's not necessarily on Google.
I switched my texting/gv to hangouts on my phone, now I can't add someone that texts me to my contact list without trying to call them first. I also can't seem to SMS someone from hangouts in my contact list on my desktop without manually typing in their phone number. Pretty big UI/UX oversights (or not).
There's really no way to actually get in touch with appropriate googlers. There's no real evidence that product owners participate where the people actually are.
What might be better, would be to approach the StackExchange guys, or even just riff their interface for a google branded services site, and have actual google employees participate. I tend to see a lot of the same lacking regarding general Windows / Microsoft support, but SO/SE fill a lot of the void... I don't think I've really seen googlers participate. Maybe they should bring back that 20% time to participate in either these forums on SO, or GH issues.
Does that have to happen?
A googler participated on Quora a while back, and it was related to the compose window changes. Was an interesting thing. Several of us wrote up the issues with that change, and the response was "I think Google is getting pretty close to optimal on this feature" and not much else.
They've got their metrics, and they've set them in various ways, and the product offerings are there to take or leave. When tons of people take them, great! When they don't, they do what they think might improve on that, or remove the product.
I get the feeling Google watches the dialog, and they take input that way, but they rarely have direct dialogs where they can end up committed in some fashion.
The more expected model is customer driven, and I agree with you on your observation. Google isn't necessarily doing it that way, or not directly.
But do they have to?
That's the question. It's also a potential abuse of their position, and I find it very intriguing to think about.
Mostly, their products add value to my life, and the costs associated with them do not trump that. So it's good for me, and I don't worry so much about the little things.
They are little things!
Like the phone UI. Or what they did with Inbox. There are some limitations. Take it or leave it. You could switch away from hangouts and be just fine, right?
In the scheme of things, UI issues aren't the same as, it doesn't work, or it hurt me, type issues.
Gmail always sends it's mail. If it didn't, that would be a major support issue. Gmail sometimes is borked on the UI, or my browser, or I don't get a draft saved when I thought I might have one, etc...
(On a phone, I find it difficult to edit a draft without actually going to the drafts list of messages, for example. The desktop allows it.)
Those things are annoyances, but they always have work arounds and I can get it done, so I just go and get it done, and if I can get it done, how much support do I really need?
IMHO, this is close to how Google thinks of things, and they get to do that, and I get to select them or not.
I've seen companies invest a TON on every little thing, completely customer driven. I've seen that work out OK, and I've seen it fail too. Failure in the sense that the product could have been taken somewhere awesome, but for lack of resources. Maybe it's that "support every little thing" drain that killed it?
Fair questions, if you ask me.
For the time being, at least, Google's Top Contributor program doesn't seem to offer any practical benefits.