There is a medium though, that will ultimately save you money/time. If every company had to spend time answering every small question with a full time employee,

There is a medium though, that will ultimately save you money/time. If every company had to spend time answering every small question with a full time employee, your services would be a lot more expensive, hold times might be longer too. Not all customers are like you. My grandpa calls in to his ISP when his internet doesn’t work when it can be solved by simply unplugging his equipment (and I’d wager this is true for the majority of the population). I don’t think there is anything wrong with adding a simple interface layer to ensure the problem the needs to be addressed requires a real person. Not defending all practices out there right now (because I too have been annoyed, NY Times *cough) but some well placed shitty robots might be in your best interest as a customer.