You're right that a customer shouldn't care the staff are too busy or too ignorant. You're also right in how complaining online short-circuits all that to actually receive help. I continuously advocate for the presence of path to higher levels and short-circuits! But it isn't always "the employee of company X responded to me on HN because my post made an executive squirm!" Some people just care and willing to lend a hand in cases where they can help.

> Some people just care and willing to lend a hand in cases where they can help.

Why don't they (whoever at the company is in a position to make a difference) care before there is bad publicity? It's either incompetence or indifference. krisoft left another comment already that explains it quite well. There is little - if any - reason to give Stripe the benefit of the doubt here, and there are a lot of reasons to believe it's intentional.

When the cost of getting a new customer is the same or less than the cost of dealing with a problematic existing customer, they will become very indifferent. They do not care.