Seems like a procrustean ontology ill-suited for describing the how the actual world works. I'm disappointed that Google would try to jam people into these pre-designed groups.
Sure, why not? It’s not like Google cares what you put on your company’s homepage so why should they care what’s in that little panel? This group could call themselves a “full-stack acquisition service provider” (as so many companies on HN do) and that should be up to them.
Here, this team description is how they want to think of themselves, and how they want customers and potential customers to think of them. You could argue that doing something unusual differentiates them or you could think it makes it harder for customers to find them or know how to work with them but that’s their issue not Google’s.
I don’t think Google’s being malevolent here, but I don’t think I they are doing the right thing.
Perhaps another “Myths programmers think about...” is needed.
There is already a place for totally free-form user-defined data: web sites. This team is free to buy a domain, do SEO on it and put whatever they want there. It certainly is Google's issue when it's their database of business listings and related info.
I think this case demonstrates that it’s foolish for G to try to decide how businesses should represent themselves if their objective is to maintain a useful database.
It’s like having an address database and requiring that each address has a number and street. We have a post on that on HN every six months or so, and I’m glad for it.
Software is supposed to be designed for humans; humans shouldn’t have to contort themselves for the sake of software.
Why does that demonstrate it's foolish? I think the only thing it demonstrates objectively is that Google's business listings restrictions don't satisfy 100% of people, but there is no configuration of this service that would please 100% of people, including the configuration where there are no restrictions at all. This is a useful service because it organizes data, and enforces some data quality restrictions (no duplicates, no keyword-stuffing), not in spite of it.
This doesn't prove that people are having to contort themselves for software any more than that would be proved by Amazon not letting me list a ceiling fan in the video games category.
