[PLUG] Why are utility company's support so terrible

[Tom]

I'm just curious why utility companies such as ISPs and energy
companies all seem to have the absolute worst customer experience in
terms of contacting them or paying a bill. Especially ISPs, whose job
it is to provide a technology service, I'd expect much more from them
but unfortunately they are often worse than power companies.

Why is it always when I go to their website (because there's no other
way) it doesn't work. It's just a blank white page or if anything it's
ATTENTION REQUIRED | ONE MORE STEP cloudflare. Suppose I get past that,
and it tries to load 40 megabytes of javascript that start bogging down
my computer to a fraction of a frame per second while I look in
something like umatrix and see it pinging out to 80+ ad networks and
tracking servers.

If I try and contact them by the phone it's some maze of an automated
robot, often times pressing zero for operator doesn't even work anymore.

What is stopping someone for just making a simple ssh server with an
ncurses interface I could use to pay my bill. Even support mosh for
unreliable connections.

I'd just ssh billing at myisp.net , it'd ask me for my account #, give me
a list of numbered options like an old BBS system, I'd select pay bill,
enter my card info and select yes pay $n amount now. Essentially the
same prompts on the phone but no need to sit there for hours with some
piss poor speech detection ai repeating myself or my face tied to a
handset.

What's stopping an ISP from just using simple XHTML1.1 with HTTP post
form submission? Why even clownflare at all when your in the same
geographic area, and the SAME NETWORK as your customers?

My cloud computing provider even has an IRC channel on OFTC for support
you can talk to people. Why can't the utility companies do that.
Instead spending massive amounts on convoluted unreliable javascript
dumpster fires. Taking tens of seconds just to finish loading a page.

It's not hard. It's like asking for ice cream and instead of just
someone going to the fridge to get a scoop, they construct some sort of
Rube Goldberg machine machine from Wallace and Gromit
https://vid.puffyan.us/watch?v=2pofVTSHt_Y

-- 
 _____________________________________ 
/ Perhaps no person can be a poet, or \
| even enjoy poetry without a certain |
| unsoundness of mind.                |
|                                     |
\ -- Thomas Macaulay                  /
 ------------------------------------- 
\
 \
   /\   /\   
  //\\_//\\     ____
  \_     _/    /   /
   / * * \    /^^^]
   \_\O/_/    [   ]
    /   \_    [   /
    \     \_  /  /
     [ [ /  \/ _/
    _[ [ \  /_/