but if caring about and solving customer problems was an actual income driver for a company, it could be very different.

i don't think that's going to happen, because i think most users (like Anthropic's) will continue to refuse to pay >$0 for support -- or to claim that their subscription payment should somehow also cover support, which is ridiculous, since they can see with their own "eyes" how little support their "compute subscription" gets them -- and thus companies will continue to invest ~$0, if not less, in meaningful support models.

it still blows my mind that nobody is willing to try charging people an extra $20 a month for unlimited support calls. most customers are DESPERATE for people to talk to about their problems.

instead, they all just try to winnow the cost down as low as possible, and then point to the expense to explain the degradation of service.