"An openly hostile relationship" -- how consumers are treated by major corporations [View all]

I am old as dirt, so I remember the days..
Once upon a time, rich people made their money off the poor and the middle classes, and so, for the first few decades of my life, corporate interactions felt like being courted by a polite but persistent suitor. They sent you freebies in the mail. Banks gave gifts like a toaster for opening an account. College kids could show up at a happy hour and dine on free hors d'oeuvres equating to a robust meal: ham-and-cream cheese rollups, buffalo wings, stuffed potato skins, deviled eggs, fruit, shrimp, etc. Dissatisfied customers could complain, get an human apology, a refund, and perhaps something more. It isn’t just that actual humans would talk to you; empowered humans would talk to you, trained with the prevailing idea that ‘customer is king’ or ‘the customer is always right’.

Not everyone had insurance — auto or medical — but if you did pay those premiums, they paid the bills. Those insurers had to protect their reputation. Companies catered to the average American because the average American had money.

Now, real good service is only for high-brow customers, while ordinary people get lip service or are treated as an annoyance. Usually one feels that one is in an openly hostile relationship with:
Insurance: claim denials, especially medical, generated by AI, and extremely complicated and intrusive rules. My gosh, they are the middle man, and they are EQUALLY HATED by both sides, octors and patients. (My recent example? I just got an annual checkup with an in-network doctor; the bloodwork was sent to a major nationwide lab but the claim was rejected because the lab is ‘not in the network’. I wonder how many layers of subcontracting am expected to monitor. Haha — what if the doctor sends it to a lab who sends it to another lab who charges for an outside delivery service that is ‘not in network’. Give it time and there will be day-of-week pricing and you will only be permitted to use Tuesday/Wednesday processing.)
Telecom: New customers get better deals, with introductory rates, while existing customers pay the most. Try to cancel or downgrade service, and you are on hold for a long time, answering a plethora of questions. This is so common it has a formal name “cancellation friction” and an informal name “roach motel” (you can check in but you can never check out).
Airlines: Strategy? Put upcharges on window or aisle or exit row seats, and make the back half of the plane as uncomfortable as possible to punish those who can’t pay more. Surveillance pricing means the algorithms know your history and use it against you. Refresh your search a few times and the price might go up, and the system knows you paid $500 last time so it won’t offer you the $300 fare offered to John Doe. Pay extra for a bag, sometimes even in the overhead bin.
Data companies Through ‘monetization’, customers are fodder, or manipulated as lab rats, or treated as organ donors to be harvested without permission. Harvest personal stories, photos, and opinions for resale. If they don’t like it, divert some of your cashflow into buying politicians, and write legislation that suits you.

Corporate lobbyists used to lie about tobacco or auto safety etc. to prevent regulation. Now, they don’t need to hide. One or two of these examples would be a mild annoyance. But in America, consumer harassment is constant.

Does it feel like a war zone as a consumer? Or just a hostile relationship? Does anyone ever feel like ‘customer is king’ anymore? If so, share your story.