I definitely don't think they've ever been super nice, but I still they still have a few much more user-friendly approaches than others. E.g., one of the reasons I bought a Pixel is that Google is one of the only phone makers that manages to have respectable security practices and still respects users enough support them choosing to modify the software on their devices and run alternate operating systems.

They weren't always evil, not in my opinion.

Back in the day they bought Feedburner, and merged it with their internal equivalent. In that process, my subscriber list was affected. They apologized and even sent out some swag. That was nice, for a small inconvenience at the time.

Today? humans don't even seem to be involved.

I think their "Don't be evil" was pretty close to the truth, as much as it can be for large corporations, until around the time Google purchased DoubleClick. That was in 2008, so that seems to match your experience.

Well, the actual phrase came from an engineer.

Disagree. Even with their issues, they're still less evil than MS, Apple and especially Oracle or Meta.

If they didn't have all their issues (discontinuing products, bad customer service) they'd probably be bigger than MS and Apple combined. But here we are.

Also for better or worse, I pay for bundled Google storage + Gemini and YouTube separately, it's still worth it, even without free months or whatever. And still better than being in MS or Apple's ecosystem.