It's pretty difficult to reach a human if you don't pay a ridiculous extra amount each month for support--and even then, they're rarely able to assist with actual bugs. They just assume everything that's wrong is your mistake, and when they finally come to the conclusion that it's a bug on their end, they give up.

If you call $100 a month minimum or a percentage of your service plan (https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/pricing/) “ridiculous”. You can immediately reach a live person via chat or phone.

I use the live business support plan all of the time as an “easy button”. Some of the issues they have helped us out with in the past.

- a cross account CodePipeline using CodeBuild and CloudFormation (you cant do it through the UI)

- configuration issues with lambda, API Gateway, and binary transfers.

- Python/Boto3/DynamoDB and DAX coding issues

- various weird CloudFormation issues.

- Parameter Store/CloudFormation throttling issues (ie use DependsOn to force CF to create Parameter Store resources serially)

From the original comment: "these large, impenetrable silicon valley companies".

Amazon isn't a silicon valley company, perhaps that's why its support isn't as horrible.