After borking my Pixel 4a battery, Google borks me, too

Within the space of three days, I went from 1) being mildly annoyed at the prospect of having my phone messed with remotely to 2) accepting that Google was (probably) doing it for my own safety and was committed to making things right to 3) berating Google for ruining my device and then using a hostile, data collecting “appeasement” program to act like it cared. This was probably not the impression Google hoped to leave in people’s minds when issuing the Pixel 4a update.

Cheap can be quite expensive

The update itself does not appear to be part of some plan to spy on us or to extract revenue but rather to keep people safe. The company tried to remedy the pain with options that, on the surface, felt reasonable, especially given the fact that batteries are well-known as consumable objects that degrade over time. And I’ve had three solid years of service with the 4a, which wasn’t especially expensive to begin with.

That said, I do blame Google in general for the situation. The inflexibility of the approach, the options that aren’t tailored for ease of use in specific countries, the outsourced tech support—these are all hallmarks of today’s global tech behemoths.

It is more efficient, from an algorithmic, employ-as-few-humans-as-possible perspective, to operate “at scale” by choosing global technical solutions over better local options, by choosing outsourced email support, by trying to avoid fraud (and employee time) through preventing program changes, by asking the users to jump through your hoops, by gobbling up ultra-sensitive information because it makes things easier on your end.

While this makes a certain kind of sense, it’s not fun to receive this kind of “efficiency.” When everything goes smoothly, it’s fine—but whenever there’s a problem, or questions arise, these kinds of “efficient, scalable” approaches usually just mean “you’re about to get screwed.”

In the end, Google is willing to pay me $50, but that money comes with its own cost. I’m not willing to pay with my time nor with the risk of my financial information, and I will increasingly turn to companies that offer a better experience, that care more about data privacy, that build with higher-quality components, and that take good care of customers.

No company is perfect, of course, and this approach costs a bit more, which butts up against my powerful urge to get a great deal on everything. I have to keep relearning the old lesson—as I am once again with this Pixel 4a fiasco—that cheap gear is not always the best value in the long run.