fREW once said “As time goes by I have less and less patience for ecosystems that demand my time” and I think about this now and then. However, in my case I replace the word “ecosystems” for “anything”. There are exceptions, of course, but I’m not going to list them here as those should be obvious or self-evident¹. Buuuuuuuut, there is an ever growing number of things being added to that list as I find them increasingly annoying.

Some time after opening my online print shop, Google, that omnipresent gobbler of data, informed me that I was selling stuff and it would be beneficial to me if that stuff was listed in web search results for stuff so that people could find and potentially buy that stuff. All I had to do was confirm the details of all that stuff.

“Stuff off” was my initial reaction as the products I’m selling are so niche, and specific to a region, that I doubted there would be any benefit. If people were searching for it, they would find it on my site. Job done. So I batted the email away and moved on.

Google persisted to nag me, as Google does. “This thing will help you!”. No it won’t, it will waste my time, so just leave me alone.

But data must be gobbled, so Google persisted in persisting, as Google does. As most things do. Inevitably I gave in, because I just don’t want to deal with the persistent pestering. Sure, gobble my data. List my stuff. Show it to people. Knock yourself out.

Google is satiated. At least for now.

Sometime later Google informs me that the visibility of my products is reduced in some country on the other side of the world that I’m never going to sell to, because I haven’t defined the shipping costs or sales tax or some other thing.

I really don’t care, so I remove their availability from that obscure region of the globe. These products, extremely specific to a region of Switzerland, are unlikely to ever see demand there.

Sometime later Google complains about another obscure region, or obscure sales tax, or some other nonsense that is an absolute waste of my time and a non-concern to me. So I continue to tweak settings in the Google Merchant Center to placate it.

Again Google is content.

All of this is done having not made a single sale through this wonderful platform. So what exactly is the point of this exercise?

Then this week Google sends me a message that “Unfortunately, Google found an issue with your account (Alpine Panoramics - Account ID: XXXXXXXXXX) that requires your attention: Misrepresentation.”

Misrepresentation? What does that even mean? I am selling photographic prints of alpine vistas, personally shot, developed, scanned, and printed by me. Exactly what am I misrepresenting here? The photos are too pretty? Not pretty enough? Oh wait, they’re black and white but The Alps are not actually black and white?

I click through to read the policy about misrepresentation but it’s myriad gibberish that is so convoluted and nonsensical that it’s impossible to understand what Google is actually asking me to do or what is wrong with the data it has gobbled. I’m pretty sure I meet most of the requirements, and the other requirements are so arbitrary that they’re meaningless:

How about being explicit about which one of these I need to fix?

Apparently I can appeal this “decision”. This “Computer says no” decision. To do that I just need to waste more of my time.

Of course no human has been involved in any of the process from the very first pestering to now. Other than me. And it is an absolute waste of my time. So I’ve taken the nuclear option and removed all of my products from the Google Merchant Center. It’s an ecosystem that demands my time, but with absolutely no benefit to myself. So it can fuck right off.