Or they've simply removed those tasks under the rubric of automation.
That's not correct. Google is more profitable because it is a monopoly and routinely engages in illegal anti-competitive behavior.
It's precisely because this is the case that it's able to have nonexistent customer service and stay in business.
[1] e.g.: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-36737666
[2] among others: https://www.forbes.com/sites/enriquedans/2021/01/19/jedi-blu...
Which is why both need aggressive regulation.
I don't know what Google's rates of customer service failures actually are, but even a minuscule of rate of horror stories seems to hurt brand, judging from HN comments.
I wonder whether fixing half of, say, 0.00000001% of cases that would otherwise be PR horror stories, could translate into measurable boost to brand value.
Maybe all the math has already been done, and all possible wins for creative automation motivated by business payoff (and promo bids) have already been achieved, or maybe not.
I doubt it. Brand value is a notoriously fuzzy concept, and corporate decision-making features a heavy measurement bias. A toxic brand might be measurable by the time it's influencing enough purchaser decisions to show up on "would you consider?" surveys, but that's an advanced stage of the problem.
The only way to fix this is to legally require it, because nobody's going to stop the profit train by themselves.