Yep. For me Google+ was the turning point. It started before that, but if you drew a line graph of Quality of Products for Google I think you'd see the Google+ rollout event on that line without it being pointed out.
I don't work there, and never have, so I have no idea what the cause is. My guess is just the fact that the company has grown so much that maintaining the quality of people and thus products that they put out is impossible beyond a certain size.
Interestingly, as the breadth and complexity of Google product grows, the need for true customer service grows, disproportionately. Very few of us needed "customer support" for Google Search, but for many of their newer, more complex products, it's a must. Google either missed this need altogether, or they decided that even with crappy/no CS, they could still make a killing with half-assed products/support. Thoughts?
I think you are right - and for me having bad customer support is a miss. If the customer support "costs" why don't include that cost in the products price? Bad customer support @ Google has turned me away from their Google Docs. Customer support is also needed when the UI is not self-explanatory like Google's very often.
They have Google Apps for the Enterprise, but very often you can't reach the Enterprise without the proper support, product documentation and service. From the other hand, I got very positive experience with Microsoft support which proves that "Customer support at scale" is possible.
The place which is hilariously broken is that on the Google play store, I cant give star ratings to movies / music that I like to get a more customized experience because doing so requires you to publicly disclose on Google+ that you liked / disliked that movie/song.
I don't work there, and never have, so I have no idea what the cause is. My guess is just the fact that the company has grown so much that maintaining the quality of people and thus products that they put out is impossible beyond a certain size.