This sort of thing has been going on since ... well, forever. I was reminded of this post [1] by Phil Agre in the RISKS Digest from 1988: "I've noticed that

This sort of thing has been going on since ... well, forever. I was reminded of this post [1] by Phil Agre in the RISKS Digest from 1988: "I've noticed that responses to attempts to complain about uncorrected technical problems tend to take certain recurring forms ... What has happened? Someone, in this case a customer though in other cases it has often been an employee, complains that something is badly amiss with some system, receives no redress, and finds that their reports are ignored. So they make noise about it. The response? 1. Misplaced accusations of uncooperativeness. ... 2. Condescending lectures about how `incredibly complicated' the systems in question are ... " etc. See the post itself for much more: 1. http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/7.09.html#subj1 http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/7.09.html#subj1