Corporate Greed and the Art of Making Customers Miserable

Corporate Greed and the Art of Making Customers Miserable

For years now I have found myself locked in a quiet, grinding feud with companies that do the wrong thing simply because they can get away with it. You know the list. Netflix deciding that sharing a password is a moral failing. Adobe turning the act of canceling a subscription into an escape room. Companies proudly announcing they have “streamlined” customer service, which is corporate speak for, we fired the humans. Airlines charging for bags, seats, legroom, oxygen, and possibly, in the future, using the restroom. Doritos quietly removing chips from the bag while charging more for the privilege of disappointment. Gyms that let you sign up online in thirty seconds but demand a blood oath and an in person pilgrimage if you want to leave.

It is everywhere. It is relentless. And it feels wildly out of control.

All of it is wrapped in the same thin justification. Growth. Efficiency. Shareholder value. Every lever pulled to make or save money except the one that actually serves the people paying the bills. Somewhere along the way, customers stopped being the point and became an obstacle to be managed.

This kind of behavior has made my blood boil for years. Nothing flips the switch faster. What once felt like the occasional bad actor now feels like standard operating procedure. I could fill a book with examples. Rental companies that never complete service orders. Internet providers throttling speeds for reasons known only to the stars. Cell phone companies collapsing for hours and offering a sincere apology as compensation, which is corporate for good luck out there.

And the real problem with all of this is not just that it happens. It is what you are supposed to do when it does. How do you metabolize that surge of anger when something so obviously wrong is happening right in front of you. Wrong in a way that a third grader could see and understand. You cannot complain because there is no one to complain to. There is no lever to pull, no adult to call into the room. And often you cannot even walk away, because there is no real alternative. The market has consolidated itself into a shrug.

Something like this happened to me today. I called the company, calmly at first, hoping logic might still have a seat at the table. I was told, politely and firmly, that there was nothing to be done. This was the policy. I would need to accept it and move on. I was furious. Not volcanic, not theatrical, just that deep simmering rage that sits in your chest and makes everything feel slightly unreal.

But what could I do. The person on the other end of the line did not invent the policy. They did not write the rules. Their job, their rent, their groceries depend on enforcing something they probably hate as much as I do. So I thanked them. I hung up. And I sat there with the anger and the frustration like an uninvited guest at the table, waiting for it to lose interest and leave on its own.

I do not have answers to any of this. Products and services are getting weaker while becoming more expensive. The companies behind them feel increasingly distant, increasingly abstract, increasingly unconcerned with the people they rely on to exist. Everything costs more and delivers less, and we are told to be grateful for the convenience.

So what do we do with that. How do we cope with a system that feels designed to extract rather than serve. Because if someone has figured out how to live sanely inside all of this without slowly losing their mind, I would genuinely love to hear it.