Everything I have read appears to be entirely self-inflicted. Had he been working through a flesh-and-blood Dell salesperson in a meatspace storefront, at least

Everything I have read appears to be entirely self-inflicted. Had he been working through a flesh-and-blood Dell salesperson in a meatspace storefront, at least fault could be placed at their feet. But no. Pretty well every single mistake appears to be either ignorance or incompetence, enhanced by irrational and emotional panicking. If you are going to use a machine for cutting-edge work, it might be a valuable life skill to actually learn something about it. I mean, a formula-1 race car driver might not be able to replace any of his mechanics, but dollars to dimes he’s likely doing the majority of his own wrench-slinging on his personal vehicles. The same goes for computing, even if you’re just a blogger or vlogger or any other kind of non-technical power user - knowing your hardware and how to maximize what goes into it can familiarize you enough to avoid OP’s issues in part, if not fully. You don’t even need to be an expert, you just need to be decently familiar with most things.