Even if they could, they would randomly discontinue the money 3 years down the line.

But I think comparing Google and the government in this sense isn't quite appropriate. Google is trying to make a profit. They try to keep their costs low. Automating customer support is one of these things, even if this customer support is poor. I'm just not sure this will work out in the long run. People know Google has bad customer service and I'm sure this has limited them in some way. I'm also sure that it's going to limit them more on the future. Would you want to jump on board this new Google service if there's a good chance that the service might get discontinued or you might have trouble with your account and no way to get help? I think Amazon is a much better company to compare to. Amazon has somehow made it work. Their customer service is great and this means that people won't worry as much about trusting things to Amazon.