In the interest of providing a counterpoint: I’ve definitely made many mistakes per job at multiple jobs, without the employer “find[ing] someone else to take [my] place”.

As a user, I’m also not dropping a company that provides me a useful service at the first (or likely second, or third) mistake.

Not everybody subscribes to this one-screwup-and-you’re-done mindset that you seem to be describing.

That's not really the mindset. The mindset is: what will serve me best. If you no longer qualify, you no longer qualify.

> that provides me a useful service

And what if the service stops being useful? What is an apology going to change? No longer useful, you'll move on.

That's where I find these apologies to be a sham. It's trying to play on people's emotions, to keep them around even once they've stopped providing value and utility, or in this case, actually causing you harm.

The only reason your employers have kept you around, is because your "mistakes" were within the expected range of what people in your position will be making as well. If you fall below that threshold, trust me, you will not be kept around for very long.

Your prior comment says “... you mess up, you're out, we give the competitor a chance. That's how it works.”

I’m saying that’s not how I approach my interactions with businesses. As you noted in your reply, employers expect an employee to make mistakes within a reasonable threshold. I have the same expectation for companies that provide me services. Making a mistake does not suddenly evaporate all their “usefulness” to me, as you seem to be suggesting.

That's just because we're using weasel words.

When I say "mess up", I imply a quantity of mistake that is beyond acceptable for the value I get.

You seem to quantify "mess up" to a much smaller degree, like "mess up" implies a reasonable set of mistakes.

So we're not discussing the same scenario, due to us quantifying "mess up" to different degrees.

It seems if we normalize our quantity of "messing up", that we actually fundamentally agree. No amount of lack of or of providing an apology really affects the consequence. Mess up within reason, you don't even need to apologise, as long as I'm still getting good value I'll continue to be a customer. Mess up beyond reason, and an apology won't help, as soon as I'm no longer getting good value, or if you're actually providing me negative returns, I will begin to look for an alternative.