You're talking about situations of what is essentially a de jure monopoly on a critical need. People sign up for COVID vaccines and file their taxes to avoid being screwed.

In places with competition the customer is the one who decides whether you are screwed. Is downtime from social media or news rather trivial? The business deadliness of downtime is different from the societal deadliness of downtime, but what significance this takes on is up to the customer to say, and the customer develops expectations based on the competition.