> Their spokesperson spoke to users like they were kindergarten children

It's very difficult when you're in this position to come up with a way to show why something is so wrong without being at least little cynical or infantilizing. What do you do when someone is arguing something that's wrong on an extremely basic level, but also gets annoyed and feels condescended to whenever you try to explain basic principles to them?

If someone sticks their hand on a lit stove, and argues with you about why actually it's good to stick their hand on a lit stove, at some point there isn't a response you can have that isn't going to be infantilizing, at some point you're just going to have to say "hot things make you go ow." If people are angry that Google is insulting them by explaining these basic analogies, then it's harsh, but I kind of feel like I want to say -- don't make mistakes that warrant those analogies.

I think it would be a mistake for companies like Google to act like this is a reasonable debate being held between people with honest disagreements about infrastructure. It's not. It's a debate with an industry/government that fundamentally either doesn't understand how the Internet works or doesn't care. People are mad that Google isn't treating a really bad argument like it's a good one. But it's not a good argument, and it doesn't help anyone to pretend that it is or prop it up and treat it like some kind of serious, reasonable discussion.