According to Fast Company, the friction in customer service is a deliberate, profitable strategy. Americans spend an average of 13 hours per year just waiting in calling queues, which adds up to over 30 days of a person’s lifetime spent on hold. The article details how companies use complex phone mazes, confusing paperwork, and ineffective support bots to create “consumer fatigue,” making customers more likely to give up on canceling or changing a service. These tactics are known as “dark patterns,” and a 2024 ICPEN review found that a staggering 76% of online services use at least one, while 67% use at least two. The core idea, backed by sources like Harvard Business Review, is that bad service is often simply more profitable for the company.
The Profitable Maze
Here’s the thing: we all know it’s bad, but seeing the numbers really drives it home. Thirty days of your life? That’s an entire month. And that’s just hold time—it doesn’t count the hours spent navigating automated menus, filling out forms, or chatting with a bot that can’t grasp your problem. Companies have turned bureaucracy into a revenue center. The longer and more obscure the process, the more likely you are to just sigh and accept the rate hike or the unwanted subscription renewal. It’s exhausting by design. The ICPEN report shows this isn’t a few bad apples; it’s the standard operating procedure for most of the online world.
Could AI Actually Fix This?
So the article pins its hopes on AI agents. Not the dumb chatbots of yesterday, but sophisticated systems that can actually understand context, pull your account data, and execute complex tasks across software—like canceling a subscription or disputing a charge—without human intervention. The promise is that these agents work for the *customer*, tirelessly navigating the corporate maze on our behalf. They don’t get tired, they don’t get frustrated, and they certainly won’t give up after being on hold for 45 minutes. Basically, they weaponize automation against the very companies that used it to frustrate us.
The Ironic Twist
But there‘s a big, obvious question: what’s the incentive for companies to deploy this? If the friction is profitable, why would they introduce a tool that removes it? The argument is competitive pressure. If one company uses AI to offer truly frictionless service—making it easy to sign up, manage, AND cancel—it could win customers fed up with the old games. It’s a bet on transparency as a market advantage. I think that’s optimistic, but maybe possible in some sectors. The other, darker path is that companies use AI to create even more sophisticated and personalized dark patterns. The arms race might just be getting started, and the next generation of friction could be a lot harder to spot.
