How to become an unpaid technical support worker for Google

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.<p>I&#x27;ve since switched to a paid email provider.

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.<p>We see much lamenting about lack of innovation in &quot;business plans&quot; 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?

People do anything for points on StackOverflow. It&#x27;s pretty much the same thing

Reminds me of a SaaS company (I won&#x27;t name) solved the problem of &quot;too much support time wasted on non-enterprise clients&quot; by funneling all non-enterprise support questions to a community forum and encouraging contributors to answer those questions.<p>I answered dozens of questions for many days, thinking it will help build credibility (as suggested by another commenter). Then I realized I&#x27;m just volunteering as level 1 support, and decided it&#x27;s not worth it.

Wow.....just wow.<p>The &quot;benefits of becoming a top contributor&quot; video made me want to bash my head into a wall.

Microsoft has had their MVP program for over 20 years! <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mvp.microsoft.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;overview.aspx" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mvp.microsoft.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;overview.aspx</a><p>&quot;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.&quot;<p>These people are going to exist whether there&#x27;s a program or not, so why not create a program to recognize them?

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?

For what it&#x27;s worth, if you can show you were proving real value and not primarily getting just entertaintainment&#x2F;training from Google, you could work this way for a period and sue Google for back wages. The courts in the U.S.&#x2F;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 &quot;volunteer&quot; labor.<p>It&#x27;s also true basically all unpaid internships are illegal and interns can easily sue for back wages, FWIW.

It&#x27;s somewhat ironic to have a thread decrying unpaid community contributions appear on Hacker News (or any other forum).

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

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

Thank you for the comments everyone. Here is the post I wrote before I posted this <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;goo.gl&#x2F;hA6VgA" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;goo.gl&#x2F;hA6VgA</a>

This is pretty similar to the Microsoft &#x27;MVP&#x27; program. Perhaps people might start listing their Top Contributor status as a badge of honour online?

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