Companies continue to store more and more customer data and property online, out of direct control of the customer, and in increasingly proprietary formats, all

Companies continue to store more and more customer data and property online, out of direct control of the customer, and in increasingly proprietary formats, all governed by vague and often unfriendly terms of service, and all of it at risk of compromise and theft, and all of these companies are racing to provide less customer service than their competitors so that they can operate at slightly lower cost. The only way to resolve disputes is to raise a big stink on discussion sites and social media and hope the story gets enough traction that somebody somewhere at the company can be moved to care. Everybody keeps doing it because, "Hey, it's always worked out fine for me. I have never had any trouble with Amazon's | Apple's | Paypal's | Google's | Facebook's | LinkedIn's | Microsoft's | Github's | Craigslist's | YouTube's customer service." (A few people think this situation isn't too great for the consumer and try not to participate, but we're crazy.) It's too bad this happened to him, but this isn't exactly news. This story has been repeating itself for a decade at least, just the names and details keep changing.