Your last sentence is dead-on. Microsoft ascribes to the traditional enterprise-y business model. The products work okay but often need support, and if you pay enough you get great support (and if you don't pay enough you get passable support). This has made them (and many other companies) a ton of money, but Google is absolutely killing all competition by following a very different path. It's hard to say how much of Google's success is due to their aversion to acting like a regular enterprise company, but I think it's safe to say they won't be drastically changing tack any time soon. The stories like this of people getting screwed are unfortunate - it's collateral damage.
Collateral damage? Well, then it appears Google's experiencing some blow back, and deservedly so. It shouldn't matter what trails your blazing, you can't leave your customers burning in the blaze behind you.
PayPal also grew this way, with collateral damage - until they were slapped with several class action lawsuits, which went through, and (I believe?) they ended up being at least partially classified as a bank. Or threatened with being classified as a bank. Something to that order.
In any event, they really had to clean up their act.
That's going to happen with Google, too, I would expect, and there's no way they are going to be surprised.
If you ask me, it's no different than a chemical manufacturing company deciding that it is more cost-effective to pay the EPA fines than to clean up their act. It's about pure numbers.
