I think it also hurts Google themselves. There is a reason they have trouble competing with AWS. Why should developers trust Google that there will be a person on the other side helping them out when things go wrong? And they always do, at worst possible time. Amazon, for all its problems, has excellent customer service.
So your parent's attempt to fix this is a PR stunt at best. If they (/Google) care about this, they should fix the problems in the process:
- define, hardcode and publish rules that will lead to successfull e-mail delivery (SPF, DKIM, history,...)
- establish a gmail technical customer support service
And they should stop with preferential treatment of those who shame them publicly. Or do they want all of us to start doing the same?