I have recently released my first web service [1]. Naturally I am now thinking of marketing it and the logical first step is to turn to "the elephant" in the room - Google. I wanted to get familiar with the user interface and see how exactly this whole thing works today and to my absolute frustration I couldn't make it work. Google wouldn't let me create another (business) account because my personal phone number was "used too many times" (I do have a personal account). I tried using my business's virtual phone number instead. No dice. Google doesn't accept virtual numbers (allegedly, the error message is simply "it cannot be used"). I tried searching some help in their "Help Center". They said "use some friend's number". That's absurd, but okay - I tried using my spouse's, in my desperation. No chance, she also has personal Google account and "too many times" apparently means > 1.
There's no way to contact support about this. You'd think a company that makes $200+ billions in advertising revenue would have some way to help potential customers give them money.
This experience (and my emotional state to feel helpless as a simple user of a simple service after having more than two decades as a software engineer under my belt) made me step back and question my entire approach. Why would I give my money to a corporate dinosaur who quite openly disrespects not only their users, but also their very clients? I mean, perhaps I am making a mistake from purely financial perspective, but sometimes it's a matter of principle, isn't it?
What are your thoughts? Are Google Ads still relevant at all? Do you think I am overreacting? Did you have similar experience and how did you fix it?
[1] mytestament.io ; i hope it's not too shameless to put the link
