Something broke. You call tech support. Twenty minutes of hold music later, someone asks if you've tried restarting. You have. They ask again. You restart anyway. It doesn't help. They transfer you. More hold music. You explain everything again. They ask if you've tried restarting.
This isn't just bad luck. Tech support has been systematically optimized to be frustrating. Not because companies hate their customers, but because good support is expensive and bad support is tolerable. The calculation has been made, and you're on the losing end.
The experience has become so universally terrible that people avoid it entirely. They'd rather live with broken products than endure the support gauntlet. Companies know this. They're counting on it.
The Problem People Keep Running Into
The core issue is a fundamental misalignment of incentives. Companies want to minimize support costs. Customers want their problems solved. These goals conflict directly.
First-line support exists to deflect, not resolve. Scripts are designed to handle the most common issues with the least effort. Anything complex gets bounced between departments. Each transfer resets the clock. Each transfer requires re-explaining.
Wait times are a feature, not a bug. If calling support is painful enough, fewer people will call. Those who do call are often so frustrated by the time they reach a person that they'll accept any resolution just to end the ordeal.
Knowledge gets siloed. The person who answers doesn't have access to your account history, previous tickets, or technical details. They're reading the same FAQ you already checked. The system is designed for efficiency, not effectiveness.
How Modern Systems Created This
Several trends converged to make tech support increasingly useless:
Outsourcing optimized for cost, not quality. Support moved to wherever labor was cheapest. Language barriers appeared. Cultural disconnects emerged. The people answering calls had never used the products they supported. They couldn't troubleshoot because they didn't understand.
Metrics drove perverse behavior. Support agents are measured on call duration and ticket volume. Solving your problem thoroughly takes time. Getting you off the phone quickly doesn't. Guess which behavior gets rewarded.
Self-service became an excuse. "Check our help center" became the answer to everything. Companies invested in documentation instead of support staff. But help centers can't handle novel problems. They can't adapt to your specific situation. They're deflection dressed as assistance.
AI promised to fix everything. Chatbots were supposed to handle routine issues, freeing humans for complex problems. Instead, they became another obstacle. You fight through the bot to reach a person, exhausted before the real interaction begins.
Products got more complex. Modern technology involves countless interacting systems. Support agents can't possibly understand all of them. They follow scripts because the alternative is chaos. The script fails, but there's nothing better.
Why It Keeps Getting Worse
Cost pressures increase constantly. Every budget cycle, support is targeted for cuts. Staff shrinks. Training gets shorter. Scripts get longer. The feedback loop of frustration accelerates.
Good support agents leave. The job is thankless. Angry customers, low pay, rigid metrics, no authority to actually help. The people who could solve problems find better opportunities. Those who remain are trapped or just starting out.
Social media has created new escape valves. Companies respond quickly to public complaints that might go viral. This creates a two-tier system: public shamers get help, quiet customers get hold music. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
And as products multiply, so do support needs. Every new device, feature, and integration creates new failure modes. Support resources stay flat while problems multiply. Something has to give, and it's always quality.
How People Cope Today
Experienced consumers have developed workarounds. They search forums and Reddit before ever contacting support. Other users have often found solutions that support doesn't know about.
Some escalate immediately. They ask for supervisors, file complaints, or take issues to social media. These tactics work, but they shouldn't be necessary. They reward persistence over legitimacy.
Others buy based on support reputation. Companies known for good support charge premium prices. People pay extra for the insurance of being helped when things break. Support quality becomes a product differentiator.
Many just replace rather than repair. The cost of a new device is often less than the cost of the time spent trying to fix the old one. This is wasteful and wrong, but it's rational given the circumstances.
Tech support will probably never be good. The economics don't support it. The best outcome is acceptable - problems eventually solved, if not pleasantly. But the nightmare of hold music, scripts, and transfers isn't going anywhere. It's the system working exactly as designed.