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lerosyesterday at 7:11 PM6 repliesview on HN

I had my GCP quota algorithmically set to 0 after spending 6 months working with them to launch a startup.

I went through a ton of hoops to get approval for our quota. We sent them system diagrams, code samples, financial reports, growth predictions, etc. It was months of back and forth. I'll also add that it was very annoying because they auto-reject your quota request if you don't respond to their emails within 48 hours but their responses take 1-3 weeks. In any case, after 6 months, they eventually approved us for our quota, we launched, and they shut us down to 0 quota across all services the instant our production app got traffic.

We contacted them again asking for help. We never got any human response. We got a boiler plate template a few times, but that was it.

I will never ever ever again use a cloud service where I can't guarantee that I can get good customer service. Unfortunately for a small business that means no big clouds like AWS, GCP, etc.

Yes, I am bitter.


Replies

entangledqubityesterday at 8:05 PM

Has AWS support gone downhill in the last two years? I've worked with them in the past - as both an individual and a couple startups - I always reached a human. Issues weren't always resolved as quickly as I'd like but response times were short.

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manqueryesterday at 8:14 PM

if you want best support (while staying with big cloud) then Microsoft is the best .

Azure has its flaws but Microsoft puts a lot of people and effort behind it . We are not that large but there are so many instances where Microsoft reps will come in call with our customers or their people working with common customers will help out etc.

AWS has a done a decent job of taking enterprise business seriously last 10 years. you can get human support but generally they will charge you , I.e if better support you want you have to pay for premium support plans .

They are constrained unlike MS they don’t have non-cloud large enterprise business relationships for decades M365 or AD etc that helps with building the enterprise DNA.

In all three clouds it works best if you don’t buy directly, buy through a partner reseller , who both have the relationships to the CSP and have the people to work with you .

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vrosasyesterday at 8:45 PM

Quota for what? In my experience the GCP service quotas are pretty sensible and if you’re running up against them you’re either dealing with unusual levels of traffic or (more often) you’re just using that service incorrectly.

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danpalmertoday at 1:07 AM

What did your account manager say about this. Getting this interaction right is the core of their job, enabling your business on the platform so you spend more money. With this bad an interaction I'd have asked for a new account manager.

tonymetyesterday at 10:29 PM

A colleague had a similar quota issue. 4 times quota restoration request was rejected. Upon the final request he put “women owned startup helping underprivileged kids” and it was approved.

It can’t hurt.

dvfjsdhgfvyesterday at 9:14 PM

> they auto-reject your quota request if you don't respond to their emails within 48 hours but their responses take 1-3 weeks

It boggles my mind anyone would base their business on their good will. By now it should be obvious that companies with a huge number of customers don't care about individual cases that much for obvious reasons. That's why they cut on customer support. You get much better support with smaller companies where you (as an individual or business) are much more important to them.