I know plenty of weaknesses in Google, and we work hard on the problems that we think matter the most (e.g. in 2010, we worked a lot on hacked sites so that regular people wouldn't stumble into an awful experience).
But it's very helpful to get independent, outside examples. It moves the conversation past "Google sucks" to "Google sucks because of query X." Sometimes those queries are new, but often what's just as useful is hearing what people dislike about the current results for the search X.
I find it very hard to believe that Google's Matt Cutts would come down from the ivory tower to answer comments on a website.
Google suspended my Google Checkout account because two words in the title of my book (make money editing from home) sent up a flag. No matter how many times I offered to give them a copy of my manuscript, they declined.
The eventual apology was appreciated, as was the full reinstatement, but it doesn't change the fact that I was wrongly accused, wrongly convicted, and had no court of appeal to go to except the very people who shut me down.
I no longer use Gmail, Google Toolbar, Chrome, Google AdSense, Google Checkout, Picasa, Blogger, Feedburner, Google Webmaster Tools, Google as a search engine, or whatever else I can think of. Google violated my terms of service.
Oh, and the nastygrams looked outsourced, and the apology had typos and bad grammar. You guys should hire an editor.
Actually, I'm not done. I didn't do anything wrong. Google admitted this. It was their mistake, not mine. They admitted this in their apology, which I did appreciate.
For my account to be randomly suspended reminds me how much an Act of Google resembles an Act of God. That's what annoyed me so much. Google did evil that day.
And that, to bring it back to the point "Matt Cutts" made, is WHY Google sucks. It can't be fixed.
But it's very helpful to get independent, outside examples. It moves the conversation past "Google sucks" to "Google sucks because of query X." Sometimes those queries are new, but often what's just as useful is hearing what people dislike about the current results for the search X.