Does Google Have “Contempt” for You Because You Can’t Call Them on the Phone?

Do you expect to be able to pick up the phone and have a meaningful conversation with someone at Google or Twitter about your problems with their services? Me, neither. Internet companies such as these typically have less than one employee per 100,000 users. Would it be reasonable to expect them to hire thousands of people to field phone calls from Gramma complaining that they broke her Internet?

Richard Stallman thinks that the lack of phone support shows “contempt” for their users. I usually think that Stallman is right on the money, but in this case I think he is being unreasonable. These companies are creatures of the Internet. That is their medium of communication, and you can usually interact with them through email or something else internetty, like IM or Twitter. If you have a serious issue you can write to their lawyers using a piece of paper, an envelope, and a stamp. That still works. But phone? No.

I read the article that Mr. Stallman links to in the New York Times: a vacuous sob story about some guy who was upset because he couldn’t phone Twitter when they canceled his account for spamming the system. The human interest angle is that his daughter has a rare medical condition and he was abusing Twitter in order to raise awareness about her disease. The article did nothing to change my opinion: if I were Twitter I wouldn’t give this guy my number either.